Flour

Pronunciation

• UK IPA: /ˈflaÊŠÉ™/
• US IPA: /ˈflaÊŠÉš/
• Rhymes: -aÊŠÉ™(r)
• Homophones: flower (for people who pronounce flour as two syllables or flower as one)

Alternative forms

• flower obsolete

Origin

Spelled (until c.1830) and meaning "flower" in the sense of flour being the "finest portion of ground grain" (cf. French fleur de farine, fine fleur). For more see flower.

The U.S. standard of identity comes from 21CFR137.105.

Noun

1. Powder obtained by grinding or milling cereal grains, especially wheat, and used to bake bread, cakes, and pastry.
• 1963, Margery Allingham, The China Governess Chapter Foreword, 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 plastic wardrobe.
2. (US standard of identity) 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.
3. Powder of other material.wood flour, produced by sanding woodmustard flour
4. Obsolete form of flowerthat nobody is wished to see my dead body. & that no murnurs walk behind me at my funeral. & that no flours be planted on my grave. — Thomas Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge.

Synonyms

• (U.S. standard of identity) smeddum, plain flour, wheat flour, white flour

Derived term

• self-raising flour, self-rising flour

Full definition of flour

Verb

1. To apply flour to something; to cover with flour.

Anagrams

• fluor
• four L