Definition, CEFR level A2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounPowder obtained by grinding or milling cereal grains, especially wheat, or other foodstuffs such as soybeans and potatoes, and used to bake bread, cakes, and pastry.
nounThe food made by grinding and bolting cleaned wheat (not durum or red durum) until it meets specified levels of fineness, dryness, and freedom from bran and germ, also containing any of certain enzymes, ascorbic acid, and certain bleaching agents.
Sentence Examples
Bread is made from flour, water and yeast.
Bread is made from flour, water, and often yeast.
Sift the flour and salt into a bowl.
CEFR Practice Quiz
She used a bag of white ____ to bake the cake, mixing it with sugar and eggs.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
To make the cake, you need to mix the sugar and eggs with two cups of white ____.
Word Origin & History
Spelled (until about 1830) and meaning flower in the sense of flour being the "finest portion of ground grain" (compare French fleur de farine, fine fleur). Doublet of fleur, flor, and flower. Partially displaced native meal.
The U.S. standard of identity comes from 21CFR137.105.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Everything a living animal could do to destroy and to desecrate bed and walls had been done. […] A canister of flour from the kitchen had been thrown at the looking-glass and lay like trampled snow over the remains of a decent blue suit with the lining ripped out which lay on top of the ruin of a plastic wardrobe."
— 1963, Margery Allingham, “Foreword”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:
"that nobody is wished to see my dead body. & that no murnurs walk behind me at my funeral. & that no flours be planted on my grave."
— 1886 May, Thomas Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge: The Life and Death of a Man of Character. […], volume II, London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], →OCLC: