a la mode
1
5.2
- idiom
- /ˌɑː lə ˈmoʊd/
:
a la mode
- He enjoyed his slice of pumpkin pie a la mode, savoring every bite with the creamy ice cream.
- pie a la mode
- apple pie a la mode
Examples
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I'd like the chef's salad, please, with the oil and vinegar on the side, and the apple pie a la mode.
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Yeah, I'd like it A la mode.
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And one order of carrot cake a la mode, topped with, quote, Whatever candy you have laying around back there.
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Then they followed up with huge slabs of apple pie a la mode and sat back content, even George for all his melancholy.
Fiction book (1995) -
Now, this is what the condemned man ordered for his final meal: Shrimp cocktail with Thousand Island dressing, rare roast beef, Brussels sprouts, apple pie a la mode, Ovaltine.
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For dessert, she ordered chocolate cake a la mode, with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.
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At the diner, I always get my apple pie a la mode because the ice cream makes it even better.
Surface Forms
Morphology
a + la + mode
This is a fixed borrowing from French (à la mode) rather than a compositional English phrase: the elements 'a' and 'la' are not meaningful English constituents and English 'mode' is not a high-frequency cue for 'fashionable' to a B1 learner. Because the overall meaning ('in fashion') cannot be reliably inferred from the apparent parts without prior exposure to the idiom, it is not transparently derivable.
Etymology
A la mode comes from French: the parts a, la, and mode together mean 'in the fashion'. One popular story says restaurants used the phrase to show a dessert came with ice cream on top, so now a la mode means 'served with ice cream'.