Definition

1. Noun:

   • The process of cooking food by dry heat in an oven: The action or method of preparing food, especially items like bread, cakes, or pastries, using the consistent, dry heat of an oven.
   • A batch of food cooked in this way: A quantity of food produced by one session of baking.

2. Adjective:

   • Extremely hot: Used informally to describe a temperature or weather condition that is intensely and unpleasantly hot, as if in an oven.

Usage and Examples

• Noun:

  • The baking of the bread filled the house with a wonderful aroma.
  • She took the first baking of cookies out of the oven.

• Adjective:

  • We sought shade from the baking sun.
  • It's baking in here; can we turn on the air conditioning?

Advanced Usage

• "baking hot": An emphatic phrase used to describe extremely high temperatures.
  • The desert sand was baking hot at noon.

Variants and Related Words

• Bake (verb): To cook food in an oven using dry heat.
  • I will bake a cake for the party.
• Baked (adjective): Describes food that has been cooked by baking.
  • We had baked potatoes with dinner.
• Baker (noun): A person whose trade is baking bread, cakes, etc.
• Bakery (noun): A place where bread, cakes, and pastries are baked or sold.

Synonyms

• Roasting (for the adjective sense of extreme heat).
• Scorching (for the adjective sense of extreme heat).
• Oven-cooking (for the noun sense of the cooking process).

Related Phrases and Collocations

• Baking powder/soda: Leavening agents used in baking.
• Baking sheet/tray: A flat metal tray used for baking.
• Baking dish: A dish, often ceramic or glass, designed for use in an oven.

Adjective

1. as hot as if in an oven

Noun

1. cooking by dry heat in an oven
2. making bread or cake or pastry etc.