Also 4 kaak, 4–6 kake, 6 Sc. caik. [ME. kake, cake, 13th c., identical with, and prob. a. ON. kaka fem. (mod.Icel. and Sw. kaka, Da. kage) in same sense, pointing to an OTeut. *kakâ-. An ablaut-derivative from the same root kak- is OHG. chuohho (MHG. kuoche, Ger. kuche), MLG. kôke, MDu. coeke (Du. koek), all masc., pointing to a WGer. *kôkon-. The ulterior history is unknown, but the stem (Aryan type *gag-) can in no way be related to L. coquĕre to cook, as formerly supposed.]
1. As name of an object, with plural: A baked mass of bread or substance of similar kind, distinguished from a loaf or other ordinary bread, either by its form or by its composition:
a. orig. A comparatively small flattened sort of bread, round, oval, or otherwise regularly shaped, and usually baked hard on both sides by being turned during the process.
c. 1230. Hali Meid., 37. Hire cake bearneð o þe stan.
c. 1325. E. E. Allit. P., B. 635. Þrwe þryftyly þer-on þo þre þerue kakez.
1382. Wyclif, 1 Sam. ii. 36. That … he offre a silueren peny, and a round kaak of breed.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVII. lxvii. (1495), 643. Some brede is bake and tornyd and wende at fyre and is callyd … a cake.
1483. Cath. Angl., 51. A Cake, torta, tortula.
1530. Palsgr., 202/2. Cake of fyne floure made in a print of yron, gavfre.
1542. Boorde, Introd. Knowl., xxvii. 194. A peny worth of whyte bread … ix. kakys for a peny; and a kake serued me a daye.
1611. Bible, Ex. xii. 39. And they baked vnleauened cakes of the dough, which they brought forth out of Egypt. Ibid., Hosea vii. 8. Ephraim is a cake not turned.
1685. Baxter, Paraphr. N. T., Mark viii. 4. Their loaves then were but like our cakes, by the custom of breaking them.
1719. De Foe, Crusoe (1840), I. v. 97. I … reduced myself to one biscuit-cake a day.
1879. Froude, Cæsar, xxii. 381. They made cakes out of roots, ground into paste and mixed with milk.
Mod. King Alfred and the cakes.
b. In Scotland (parts of Wales, and north of England), spec. a thin hard-baked brittle species of oaten-bread. Hence the name Land of Cakes (i.e., of oaten bread), applied (originally in banter) to Scotland, or the Scottish Lowlands.
a. 1572. Knox, Hist. Ref. (1732), 42 (Jam.). That winter following sa nurturit the Frenche men, that they leirnit to eit, yea, to beg caikis, quhilk at their entry they scornit.
1620. Venner, Via Recta, i. 17. Of Oates in Wales, and some of the Northerne shires of England, they make bread, especially in manner of Cakes.
1669. Sir R. Moray, in Lauderdale Papers (1885), II. cxiv. 171. If you do not come out of the land of cakes before New Year’s day.
1715. Pennecuick’s Tweeddale, Note 89 (Jam.). The oat-cake, known by the sole appellative of cake, is the bread of the cottagers.
c. 1730. Burt, Lett. N. Scotl. (1818), II. 164. The Lowlanders call their part of the country the land of cakes.
1789. Burns, Capt. Grose, i. Hear, Land o’ Cakes, and brither Scots.
1864. A. McKay, Hist. Kilmarnock, 113. With abundance of cakes.
Mod. Country children in Scotland still ‘seek their cakes’ on Hogmanay or ‘Cake-day.’ Among the rhymes used, one hears ‘My feet’s cauld, my shoon’s thin, Gie’s my cakes, and let’s rin.’
c. In England, cakes (in sense a) have long been treated as fancy bread, and sweetened or flavored; hence, the current sense:
A composition having a basis of bread, but containing additional ingredients, as butter, sugar, spices, currants, raisins, etc. At first, this was a cake also in form, but it is no longer necessarily so, being now made of any serviceable, ornamental or fanciful shape; e.g., a tea-, plum-, wedding-cake, etc.
c. 1420. Liber Cocorum (1862), 50. Geder hit [the eggs, tansy and butter, for a tansy cake] on a cake … With platere of tre, and frye hit browne.
1577. Northbrooke, Dicing (1843), 100. His mother left bringing of wine and cakes to the church.
1683. Tryon, Way to Health, 233. Observe the composition of Cakes, which are frequently eaten … In them there are commonly Flour, Butter, Eggs, Milk, Fruit, Spice, Sugar, Sack, Rose-Water and Sweet-Meats, as Citron, or the like.
1710. Addison, Tatler, No. 220, ¶ 8. Banbury … was a Place famous for Cakes and Zeal.
1816. Southey, Poet’s Pilgr., I. 44. Assche for water and for cakes renown’d.
1841. Lane, Arab. Nts., I. 71. Sweet cakes, or biscuits, of an annular form.
Mod. At the conclusion of the ceremony each child was regaled with a cake. To buy a cake for the christening.
2. As a substance, without plural: Fancy bread of the kind mentioned in 1 c. (In Scotland, plain oatmeal bread of the kind mentioned in 1 b.)
1579. Fulke, Confut. Sanders, 591. The last answere is as good as cake & pudding.
1633. B. Jonson, Tale Tub, II. i. (N.). If he ha’ cake And drink enough, he need not vear [fear] his stake.
Mod. Little boys are fond of cake. To buy a pound of cake at the confectioner’s. To send wedding-cake to friends at a distance. No cards; no cake.
3. Applied to other preparations of food, not of the nature of bread, made in the form of a rounded flattened mass; e.g., a fish-cake, potato-cake, pancake. (The last named has the characteristics of a cake in the original sense, except that it is cooked soft, eaten hot, and is reckoned not as bread, but as a kind of pudding.)
4. A mass or concretion of any solidified or compressed substance in a flattened form, as a cake of soap, wax, paint, dry clay, coagulated blood, tobacco, etc. See also AGUE-CAKE, ELF-CAKE.
1528. Test. Ebor. (Surtees), V. 267. ij cakes of wax.
1579. Langham, Gard. Health (1633), 2. Vse it as much in thy pottage to heale the elfe cake.
1587. Fleming, Contn. Holinshed, III. 1368/2. Their cakes of waxe which they call Agnus Dei.
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 552. A Cake that groweth upon the side of a dead tree … large and of a Chesnut colour, and hard and pithy.
1665. Phil. Trans., I. 36. It [Earth] soon melted and became a Cake in the bottom.
1799. G. Smith, Laborat., I. 122. Take it [the enamel] off the fire; make it into cakes, and preserve it for use.
1833. Marryat, P. Simple, iv. Four cakes of Windsor, and two bars of yellow for washing.
1884. Manch. Exam., 29 Feb., 5/3. A parcel of cakes of dynamite.
b. fig.
1872. Bagehot, Physics & Pol. (1876), 27. To create what may be called a cake of custom.
1879. H. George, Progr. & Pov., X. i. (1881), 433. A body or ‘cake’ of laws and customs grows up.
5. Heraldry. A bearing resembling the bezant; a roundel.
1486. Bk. St. Albans, Her., C iij b. Besantys and lytill cakys differ not bot in colore, for besanttis be euer of golden coloure.
6. dial. and slang. A foolish or stupid fellow.
1785. Grose, Dict. Vulgar Tongue, Cake or Cakey, a foolish fellow.
1847–78. in Halliwell.
1877. Peacock, N. Linc. Gloss. (E. D. S.), Cake, a silly person, especially one fat and sluggish.
1881. Evans, Leicester. Wds., Cake, a noodle.
7. Cake is often used figuratively in obvious allusion to its estimation (esp. by children) as a ‘good thing,’ the dainty, delicacy, or ‘sweets’ of a repast. So cakes and ale, cake and cheese (Scotl.). To take the cake: to carry off the honors, rank first.
1579. [see 2].
1601. Shaks., Twel. N., II. iii. 124. Dost thou thinke because thou art vertuous, there shall be no more Cakes and Ale?
1606. Day, Ile of Guls, III. i. (1881), 68. That’s Cake and Cheese to the Countrie.
1750. Earl Holderness, in Ellis, Orig. Lett., II. 466, IV. 390. If I stay in [office], I must now have my share of the Cake.
1854. Blackw. Mag., LXXVI. 702. Malcolm is, par excellence, the ‘cake’ of the corps dramatique.
1886. Garden, 5 June, 519/1. The gardener’s life, as a rule, is not all ‘cakes and ale.’
1886. Pall Mall Gaz., 2 Sept., 5/1. As a purveyor of light literature warranted not to cause mental indigestion or remorse for time misspent, Mr. Norris takes the cake.
8. Proverbs. You can’t eat your cake and have it (see quots.): † One’s cake is dough: one’s project has failed of success (obs.). Every cake has its make, mate, or fellow (northern dial. and Sc.).
1562. J. Heywood, Prov. & Epigr. (1867), 79. What man, I trow ye raue, Wolde ye bothe eate your cake, and haue your cake?
1712. Shaftesb., Charac. (1737), I. 130. As ridiculous as the way of children, who eat their cake, and afterwards cry for it…. They shou’d be told, as children, that they can’t eat their cake, and have it.
1815. Wellington, Lett., in Gurw., Disp., XII. 589. Our own government also … having got their cake, want both to eat it and keep it.
1596. Shaks., Tam. Shr., I. i. 110. Our cake’s dough on both sides. Farewell.
1687. Settle, Reflect. Dryden, 4. She is sorry his Cake is dough, and that he came not soon enough to speed.
1708. Motteux, Rabelais, IV. vi. You shall have rare Sport anon, if my Cake ben’t Dough, and my Plot do but take.
1641. D. Ferguson, Scot. Prov., in Ray, Prov. (1670), 293. There was never a cake, but it had a make.
1678. Ray, Prov., 68. Every cake hath its make, but a scrape-cake hath two.
9. Comb. a. (senses 1, 2), as cake-basket, -bowl, -maker, -making, -man, -mo(u)ld, -stall; b. (sense 4), as cake-colo(u)r, -copper, -ink, -lac, -soap; c. adjs., as cake-bearing, -like; d. † cake-fiddler, cake-fumbler, a parasite; cake-meal, ‘linseed meal obtained by grinding the cake after the expression of the oil’ (Syd. Soc. Lex.); cake-urchin, a popular name for Echinoderms of a discoid shape. See also CAKE-BREAD, -HOUSE.
1667. Phil. Trans., II. 510. As in all *Cake-bearing (called by the Latines, Placentifera) and in all Kernel-bearing (called Glandulifera) or Ruminating Animals.
1874. Mrs. Whitney, We Girls, ii. 43. A *cake-bowl in one hand, and an egg-beater in the other.
1806–7. J. Beresford, Miseries Hum. Life (1826), III. xxxvi. Rubbing … *cake colours in a very smooth saucer.
1859. Gullick & Timbs, Paint., 294, note. The pigments are prepared … as dry cake colours, as moist colours in earthenware pans,… and in metal collapsible tubes.
1803. Hatchett, Phil. Trans., XCIII. 90, note. The fine granulated copper is made in this country from the Swedish *cake-copper.
1881. Raymond, Mining Gloss., Cake-copper, Tough cake, refined or commercial copper.
1513. Douglas, Æneis, Transl. to Rdr., 75. I am na *cayk fydlar [1553 *caik fumler], full weil ye knawe.
1704. Lond. Gaz., No. 4022/4. The Universal *Cake-Ink.
1883. Cassell’s Fam. Mag., Oct., 686/1. The sediment … is formed into small, square cakes … known as lac-dye, or *cake-lac.
1835. Todd, Cycl. Anat. & Phys., I. 764/2. The *cake-like organ … which covers the ear.
1591. Percivall, Sp. Dict., Turronero, a *cakemaker, pistor placentarius.
1824. Miss Mitford, Village, Ser. I. (1863), 221. The preservings, the picklings, the *cake-makings. Ibid. (1832), Ser. V. (1863), 410. We turned off our old stupid deaf *cakeman.
c. 1865. Circ. Sc., I. 343/1. Inspissated juice … poured into … *cake-moulds.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts, 391. Dissolue therein one ounce of *cake-Sope.
1877. Amelia B. Edwards, Up Nile, i. 5. The old Turk who sets up his *cake-stall in the sculptured recess of a Moorish doorway.
