flour
/ˈflæʊ.ə/UK/ˈflaʊ.ə/
flour noun: powder 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. Also the obsolete form of flower.
Noun
flour (usually uncountable, plural flours)
- Powder 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.
- 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...1963, Margery Allingham, “Foreword”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC
- The 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.
- Synonyms:
- smeddum, plain flour, wheat flour, wheatmeal, white flour
- Powder of other material.
- mustard flour
Verb
flour (third-person singular simple present flours, present participle flouring, simple past and past participle floured)
- To apply flour to something; to cover with flour.
- Flour the surface before rolling out the dough.
- To reduce to flour.
- To break up into fine globules of mercury in the amalgamation process.
Also used as
flour is also the obsolete form of flower.
flour meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
flour in Hindi
- ground cereal grains or other foodstuff
- आटा āṭā
flour in Tamil
- ground cereal grains or other foodstuff
- மாவு māvu
flour in Marathi
- ground cereal grains or other foodstuff
- पीठ pīṭh
flour in Urdu
- ground cereal grains or other foodstuff
- آٹا āṭā
More languagesFewer languages
- flour in Bengali
- আটা aṭa, ময়দা moẏoda
- flour in Telugu
- పిండి piṇḍi
- flour in Malayalam
- മാവു māvu
- flour in Kannada
- ಹಿಟ್ಟು hiṭṭu
- flour in Punjabi
- ਆੱਟਾ āṭṭā, آٹا pnb
- flour in Gujarati
- આટો āṭo, લોટ loṭ
- flour in Odia
- ଅଟା aṭā
- flour in Sinhala
- පිටි piṭi
- flour in Assamese
- আটা ata
- flour in Nepali
- पिठो piṭho, आटो āṭo
- flour in Pashto
- اوړه orha
- flour in Tagalog
- harina, arina
- flour in Arabic
- طَحِين ṭaḥīn, دَقِيق daqīq, طحين ṭḥin, دَقيق dagīg
- flour in Malay
- tepung
- flour in Indonesian
- tepung, tepung terigu
- flour in Persian
- آرْد ārd
- flour in Thai
- แป้ง bpɛ̂ɛng
- flour in Vietnamese
- bột, phấn
- flour in Myanmar
- မှုန့် hmun., ဂျုံမှုန့် gyumhmun.
- Sindhi
- اَٽو aṭo
Examples of flour in a sentence
- My great-grandfather worked in a mill. He filled the flour sacks and then carried and loaded them.
- Cream the vegetables with the olive oil, flour, salt and water mixture.
- Graham flour is unbolted flour; in contrast, some other flours have been bolted.
Synonyms of flour
Forms of flour
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | flours |
| alternative form (obsolete) | flower |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | flours |
| present participle | flouring |
| past participle | floured |
| past | floured |
Origin of flour
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.
Words formed from flour
- all-purpose flour
- beanflour
- beflour
- bread flour
- cold flour
- cornflour
- cricket flour
- flour beetle
- flour corn
- flour gold
- flourless
- flourlike
- flourman
- flourmill
- flour mill
- flour mite
- flour-monger
- flour moth
- flour paste
- floursack
- flour treatment agent
- glacial flour
- graham flour
- mesquite flour
- moth flour
- national flour
- nonflour
- pastry flour
- pea flour
- rice flour
- rock flour
- rye flour
- second flour
- self-raising flour
- self-rising flour
- strong flour
- wood flour
- reflour
- unfloured
Phrases with flour
- bean flour
- flour mills
- flour mites
- flour moths
- plain flour
- wheat flour
- white flour
- flour pastes
- flour beetles
- red flour beetle
- red flour beetles
- confused flour beetle
4 more phrasesFewer phrases
Words that rhyme with flour
4 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about flour
- What does flour mean?
- Flour means powder 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.
- What is flour in Hindi?
- Flour in Hindi is आटा (āṭā). See Flour meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is flour?
- Flour can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce flour?
- Flour is pronounced /ˈflaʊ.ə/ (UK).
- What is the plural of flour?
- The plural of flour is flours.
Words near flour in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: flour (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-flour.ogg.
Cite this entry: “flour.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/flour. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.