- lard (v.)
- "prepare (meat) for roasting by inserting pieces of salt pork, etc., into it," mid-14c., from Old French larder "to lard, cook with strips of bacon fat" (12c.), from larde "bacon fat" (see lard (n.)). The inserted bacon strip is a lardon or lardoon (from French). Figuratively, of speech or writing, "intersperse with material by way of ornament or improvement," from 1540s. Related: Larded; larding.
- lard (n.)
- late 14c. (possibly early 13c.), "rendered fat of a swine," from Old French larde "joint, meat," especially "bacon fat" (12c.), and directly from Latin lardum "lard, bacon, cured swine's flesh" (source also of Spanish, Italian lardo), probably cognate with Greek larinos "fat," laros "pleasing to the taste."
- larder (n.)
- c. 1300, "supply of salt pork, bacon, and other meats," later in reference to the room for processing and storing such (late 14c.), from Anglo-French larder, Old French lardier "tub for bacon, place for meats," from Medieval Latin lardarium "a room for meats," from Latin lardum "lard, bacon" (see lard (n.)).
Meaning "department of the royal household or of a monastic house in charge of stored meats" is mid-15c. Figurative use, in reference to a "storehouse" of anything, is by 1620s. Surname Lardner "person in charge of a larder" is attested from mid-12c., from Middle English lardyner, from Medieval Latin lardenarius "steward."
- lardaceous (adj.)
- "full of or resembling lard," 1799; see lard (n.) + -aceous.
- lardy (adj.)
- 1865, from lard (n.) + -y (2). Related: Lardiness.
- interlard (v.)
- early 15c., "to mix with alternate layers of fat" (before cooking), from Old French entrelarder (12c.), from entre- "between" (see inter-) + larder "to lard," from Old French lard "bacon fat" (see lard (n.)). Figurative sense of "diversify with something intermixed" first recorded 1560s. Related: Interlarded; interlarding; interlardment.
- suet (n.)
- late 14c., "solid fat formed in the torsos of cattle and sheep," probably from an Anglo-French diminutive of Old French siu "fat, lard, grease, tallow" (Modern French suif), from Latin sebum "tallow, grease" (see sebum). Related: Suety.
- adipose (adj.)
- 1743, from Modern Latin adiposus "fatty," from Latin adipem (nominative adeps, genitive adipis) "soft fat of animals, fat, lard," from Greek aleipha "unguent, fat," related to lipos "grease, fat" (see leave (v.)). Change of -l- to -d- "prob. due to Umbrian influence" [Klein]. But it could as well be a native Italic formation from the same roots, *ad-leip-a "sticking onto."
- stearin (n.)
- glycerine of stearic acid, white crystalline compound found in animal and vegetable fats (it was derived from mutton fat, among other things), 1817, from French stéarine, coined by French chemist Marie-Eugène Chevreul (1786-1889) from Greek stear (genitive steatos) "tallow, stiff fat, suet" (contrasted with pimele "soft fat, lard;" compare Latin sebum/adeps), possibly from PIE *stai- "stone," also "to thicken, stiffen" (see stone (n.)). Stearic (1831) is from French stéarique.
- smear (v.)
- Old English smerian, smierwan "to anoint or rub with grease, oil, etc.," from Proto-Germanic *smerwjan "to spread grease on" (source also of Old Norse smyrja "to anoint, rub with ointment," Danish smøre, Swedish smörja, Dutch smeren, Old High German smirwen "apply salve, smear," German schmieren "to smear;" Old Norse smör "butter"), from PIE *smeru- "grease" (source also of Greek myron "unguent, balsam," Old Irish smi(u)r "marrow," Old English smeoru "fat, grease, ointment, tallow, lard, suet," Lithuanian smarsas "fat").
Figurative sense of "assault a public reputation with unsubstantiated charges" is from 1879. Related: Smeared; smearing. Smear-word, one used regardless of its literal meaning but invested with invective, is from 1938.
- doughnut (n.)
- 1809, American English, from dough + nut (n.), probably on the notion of being a small round lump (the holes came later, first mentioned c. 1861). First recorded by Washington Irving, who described them as "balls of sweetened dough, fried in hog's fat, and called doughnuts, or olykoeks." Earlier name for it was dough-boy (1680s). Bartlett (1848) meanwhile lists doughnuts and crullers among the types of olycokes, a word he derives from Dutch olikoek, literally "oil-cake," to indicate a cake fried in lard.
The ladies of Augusta, Maine, set in operation and carried out a novel idea, namely, the distribution of over fifty bushels of doughnuts to the Third volunteer regiment of that State. A procession of ladies, headed by music, passed between double lines of troops, who presented arms, and were afterwards drawn up in hollow square to receive from tender and gracious hands the welcome doughnation. [Frazar Kirkland, "Anecdotes of the Rebellion," 1866]
Meaning "a driving in tight circles" is U.S. slang, 1981. Compare also donut.
