Word.ws English Dictionary

semla

/ˈsɛmlə/

semla noun: a pastry with a cream and almond paste filling, traditionally eaten on Shrove Tuesday in Sweden, Finland and Estonia.

semla: a pastry with a cream and almond paste filling, traditionally eaten on Shrove Tuesday in Sweden,...
Image: Frugan, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

semla (plural semlas)

  1. A pastry with a cream and almond paste filling, traditionally eaten on Shrove Tuesday in Sweden, Finland and Estonia.

Forms of semla

pluralsemlas

Origin of semla

From Swedish semla, ultimately from Latin simila (“finest quality wheat flour”), through Old Swedish. Doublet of semola and semel; compare semolina.

Questions about semla

What does semla mean?
Semla means a pastry with a cream and almond paste filling, traditionally eaten on Shrove Tuesday in Sweden, Finland and Estonia.
What part of speech is semla?
Semla is a noun.
How do you pronounce semla?
Semla is pronounced /ˈsɛmlə/.
What is the plural of semla?
The plural of semla is semlas.

Words near semla in the dictionary

  1. semiyear
  2. semiyearly
  3. semiyears
  4. semizygous
  5. Semjong
  6. semla
  7. semlas
  8. Semler
  9. Semlers
  10. Semley
  11. Semmens

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: semla (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.

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Cite this entry: “semla.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/semla. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.