pudding

Noun

pudding (countable and uncountable, plural puddings)

1. Any of various dishes, sweet or savoury, prepared by boiling or steaming or from batter.
   • The dishes in this chapter represent a range of multiethnic savory custards and steamed puddings, including a few surprises like a chèvre popover pudding and a bread pudding with lettuce and cheese.2004, Victoria Wise, The Pressure Cooker Gourmet, page 313
   • Steamed and boiled puddings have formed the basic diet of country people in northern Europe for centuries. Early puddings consisted of the scoured stomach of a sheep or pig, stuffed with its own suet and offal, which has been thickened with oatmeal, and boiled in water or baked in the ashes of a...2004, Sarah Garland, The Complete Book of Herbs & Spices, page 199
2. A type of cake or dessert cooked usually by boiling or steaming.
   • Steamed puddings, a favourite for winter, are both easy to make and delicious. Served with one of the sweet sauces (recipes 497 to 506) they make a filling and satisfying end to a meal.2007, Magdaleen Van Wyk, The Complete South African Cookbook, page 265
3. A type of dessert that has a texture similar to custard or mousse but using some kind of starch as the thickening agent.
4. (Australia, New Zealand, UK) Dessert; the dessert course of a meal.
   • We have apple pie for pudding today.
   • Harold Winstanley: Is there any pudding?
     Doris Winstanley: Oh, yes. Rhubarb cobbler left over from Sunday.1998 March 29, Caroline Graham, “Death of a Hollow Man”, in Midsomer Murders

   Synonyms:

   afters, dessert, pud, sweet

5. (originally) A sausage made primarily from blood.

   Synonyms:

   black pudding, blood sausage

6. (slang) An overweight person.

   Synonyms:

   fatty, porker, All are derogatory unless otherwise labeled, butterball, chod, chodder, chubbs, chubster, chunker, chunky monkey

7. (endearing) A term of endearment.
   • "How is my little pudding?" Jehan nuzzles up to me and rests his little head on my shoulder, still chuckling […]2005, Ruzbeh N. Bharucha, Rest in Pieces, page 7

   Synonyms:

   dumpling

8. (slang) Entrails.
   • I pray God he may recover, though there is little hopes; as there is of Coll Halley, being shott throw the body; and of Capt. Urquhart of Burdyeyeards, being wounded in the belly, after being made prisoner, soe that his puddings hang out.1715 November 15, To Mr James Neilsone, opposite the Tolbooth, Berwick; published as “Battle of Sheriffmuir”, in The Edinburgh Magazine, March 1818, page 241
   • PUDDINGS, the guts; I'll let out your puddings.[1785, Francis Grose, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue

   Synonyms:

   bowels, guts, innards

9. (obsolete) Any food or victuals.
   • Eat your pudding, slave, and hold your tongue.1718, Matthew Prior, Merry Andrew

   Synonyms:

   fodder, provisions, aliment, bait, belly-timber, chow, comestibles, cuisine, eatables, eats

10. (archaic, slang) A piece of good fortune.

    Synonyms:

    lucky break, stroke of luck