Skip to main content
Christmas pudding

Christmas pudding

2 2.5
A rich sweet cooked with dried fruit and spices and served at Christmas in Britain
  • noun
  • /ˈkrɪs·məs ˈpʊd·ɪŋ/
  • UK
translation icon : pudín de Navidad
  • In England, there's a tradition of baking a sixpence in a Christmas pudding.
  • a traditional Christmas pudding
  • a British Christmas pudding

A Christmas tree, a Christmas pudding, a crayon lover pud, a reindeer.

Examples

Synonyms

plum pudding
vsChristmas pudding
  • UK
3 5.5

A rich steamed dessert with dried fruit and spices, often served at Christmas in Britain

has identical meaning but is an alternative traditional name
suet pudding
vsChristmas pudding
  • UK
1 7.6

A steamed or boiled pudding made from suet, a hard beef fat, and flour, often sweet

is the sweet fruit and spice version served during winter holidays
steamed pudding
vsChristmas pudding
  • UK
2.8

A sweet or savory dish cooked by steaming, often made from flour and eggs

is the dense fruit and spice dessert served during winter holidays

How Rich

fruitcake
25 1.4
Christmas pudding
  • UK
2 2.5
trifle
4 3.5
sorbet
16 2.7

Surface Forms

Morphology

Christmas + pudding

The meaning is directly compositional: it denotes a pudding associated with Christmas, so a learner who knows 'Christmas' (the festival) and 'pudding' (a dessert) can infer it refers to a type of dessert served at Christmas. Although cultural specifics (rich, steamed, dried-fruit preparation) are not deducible from the words, the basic referent is transparent and parallels cross-linguistic holiday-food constructions.

Etymology

Christmas pudding comes from Britain long ago when families made a thick mix of dried fruit, spices and fat that they boiled or steamed for the holiday. Because it was the special pudding of Christmas, people simply called it the Christmas pudding, which is why today the phrase means the rich, festive dessert served at Christmas.