won ton
- noun
- /wʌn tɑn/
:
wonton
- I love the soft texture of the won ton dumplings filled with shrimp and vegetables.
- won ton wrappers
Examples
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And if there's 2 of them, they can have Their choice of egg roll or won ton.
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What about the won tons?
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The won ton soup is better in San Francisco.
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The won ton soup served at the restaurant is delicious and full of flavor.
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At the dinner party, we enjoyed a bowl of hot won ton soup as an appetizer.
Synonyms
41
1.8
A small piece of dough, plain or filled, cooked and eaten, often in soup
9
5.1
A small Chinese dumpling filled with meat, fish or vegetables, often served in soup
1
2.9
A clear hot Chinese soup with small meat dumplings and vegetables
A small dough pocket with meat or vegetables inside usually steamed
Surface Forms
Morphology
won + ton
The elements 'won' and 'ton' are not English lexical morphemes with independent meanings in this context; 'wonton' is a transliteration of a Chinese word for a dumpling, so its culinary meaning is lexicalized rather than compositionally derived. A B1 learner who knows the (non-)constituent strings in English would not be able to infer 'dumpling in soup' from them, making the expression opaque.
Etymology
Won ton may come from Chinese words won and ton that mean 'to swallow' or a 'small bite'. The dumpling is soft and often eaten in one quick mouthful, so that literal image helps explain why the name refers to the little filled dumpling and the soup it comes in.