Definition

1. Noun:

   • A sweet baked dessert: A food item typically made from flour, sugar, eggs, and fat, mixed together and baked.
   • A shaped or compressed mass: A small, flat, often round mass of chopped or compressed food or other substance.
   • A block of a solid substance: A shaped, solid piece of a material like soap, wax, or tobacco.

2. Verb:

   • To form or cover with a thick or hard layer: To become covered with a layer of something that hardens or dries.

Usage Examples

• Noun:

  • She baked a chocolate cake for the birthday party.
  • For dinner, we had salmon cakes with a side salad.
  • He bought a cake of soap from the artisan market.

• Verb:

  • Mud had caked on his boots after the long hike.
  • The paint caked in the lid of the can because it wasn't closed properly.

Advanced Usage

• "a piece of cake" (idiom): Something very easy to do.

  • The math test was a piece of cake; I finished it in twenty minutes.

• "to have one's cake and eat it too" (idiom): To want to enjoy the benefits of two mutually exclusive options. Often used in the negative: "You can't have your cake and eat it too."

  • He wants a high salary without more responsibility, but you can't have your cake and eat it too.

• "to take the cake" (idiom): To be the most extreme or surprising example of something (often negative).

  • All his stories are unbelievable, but this one takes the cake.

Variants and Related Words

• Cakey or Caky (adj): Having a dry, thick consistency that resembles cake, often used for makeup.

  • The foundation looked cakey on her skin.

• Fishcake (n): A patty made from chopped fish, potatoes, and seasoning, fried or baked.

• Pancake (n): A thin, flat cake of batter fried on both sides.

Synonyms

• Noun (dessert): Gateau, pastry, torte.
• Noun (mass): Patty, lump, block, bar.
• Verb: Encrust, coat, cover.

Related Phrasal Verbs

(Note: "Cake" is not commonly used in phrasal verb constructions. Its verbal use is typically straightforward.)

Related Idioms

• "Sell like hotcakes": To be sold very quickly and in large quantities.

  • The new video game is selling like hotcakes.

• "The icing on the cake": Something that makes a good situation even better.

  • Winning the scholarship was great, and the congratulatory letter from the dean was the icing on the cake.

Noun

1. baked goods made from or based on a mixture of flour, sugar, eggs, and fat
2. small flat mass of chopped food
3. a block of solid substance (such as soap or wax)
   • a bar of chocolate

Verb

1. form a coat over
   • Dirt had coated her face