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doughnut

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Etymology and origin of the English word doughnut

Confidence
Established
Formation
Compound
First attested
1782 T. B. Hazard's diary
Ultimate origin
Old English dag,hnutu
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
English dough
English doughnut
From the same root
English duff ← dough

Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˈdəʊnʌt/[1]
  • US: /ˈdoʊ(ˌ)nʌt/[1]

Etymology

It is formed from English dough + nut.[2][3][4][5] Etymonline thinks the cake was probably called a nut as a small round lump of dough, the holes coming later,[3] and the American Heritage Dictionary takes nut in an earlier sense, a small rounded cake or biscuit.[6] An earlier name for the cake was doughboy, from the 1680s.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A small spongy cake of sweetened dough fried in fat: 1782, in the diary of T. B. Hazard; the OED labels it originally American and southern English regional.[2] Etymonline and Merriam-Webster date it to about 1809, when Washington Irving described doughnuts as "balls of sweetened dough, fried in hog's fat",[3][7] and Dictionary.com to 1795–1805.[5]

Semantic evolution

The early doughnuts were balls: Irving called them doughnuts or olykoeks,[3] and Bartlett (1848) listed doughnuts and crullers among the kinds of olycoke, which he derived from the Dutch for "oil-cake".[3] The ring shape is first mentioned about 1861.[3] From 1884 the word was used of other things shaped like a ring doughnut, such as a ring-shaped life raft in the navy.[2] From 1941 physicists used it for the ring-shaped vacuum chamber of a particle accelerator.[2] Since 1951 a doughnut has also been a stunt in which a car is spun round in tight circles;[2] Etymonline dates this to 1981 and Green's dictionary has the verb from 1971.[3][8] American slang used it for a car tyre from 1922 and for a rich fool from 1926 ("money all around, nothing in the middle"), and in British slang it has meant simply a fool since 2000.[8] British usage also has a verb, of Members of Parliament crowding round a speaker during televised debates to make the chamber look full.[9]

Timeline

  • 1782 – a small fried cake of sweetened dough.[2] Merriam-Webster and Etymonline date it to about 1809, in Washington Irving.[7][3]
  • c. 1861 – first mention of the hole in the middle.[3]
  • 1870 – the spelling donut in the United States.[3]
  • 1884 – something shaped like a ring doughnut.[2]
  • 1922 – slang, a car tyre.[8]
  • 1926 – slang, a rich fool.[8]
  • 1941 – in physics, the ring-shaped vacuum chamber of a particle accelerator.[2]
  • 1951 – a stunt in which a car is spun round in tight circles.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A small cake of sweetened dough fried in deep fat, usually shaped like a ring or a ball, sometimes filled with jam or cream: He brought a box of doughnuts to the morning meeting.[7][9][4]
  2. Something shaped like a ring, such as a ring-shaped life raft or the vacuum chamber of a particle accelerator or tokamak.[7][9][2]
  3. (slang) A manoeuvre in which a car is made to spin round in tight circles.[2][8]
  4. (British slang) A fool.[8]

Verb

  1. (British, informal) Of Members of Parliament, to gather round a speaker during a televised debate so that the chamber looks crowded.[9]

Word family

  • doughnutlike
  • jelly doughnut
  • donut
  • doughboy
  • cruller

Usage notes

The spelling donut is recorded in the United States from 1870 and became common in bakery names from about 1920.[3] Merriam-Webster labels it chiefly American,[7] Collins especially American,[9] and the Shorter Oxford North American and commercial.[4] Halliwell (1847) recorded an English dialect word donnut, a pancake made of dough rather than batter, which Bartlett (1848) took to be the same word as the American one.[3]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  6. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  7. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  8. ^ a b c d e f Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  9. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
Cite this entry

“Doughnut.” Etymologically, 2 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/doughnut. Accessed 2 Nov. 2026.

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