Brussels biscuit
- noun
- Archaic
:
biscocho de Bruselas
- A Brussels biscuit is perfect for dipping into hot chocolate.
Examples
-
She served tea with a plate of Brussels biscuits and jam.
-
The bakery specializes in freshly made Brussels biscuits every morning.
-
I love a crunchy Brussels biscuit with my tea.
-
She baked a batch of Brussels biscuits for the party.
-
A Brussels biscuit is perfect for dipping into hot chocolate.
-
She served tea with a plate of Brussels biscuits and jam.
-
The bakery specializes in freshly made Brussels biscuits every morning.
Synonyms
5
5.9
A hard dry slice of sweet bread baked twice until crisp
1
9.9
A sweet bread slice baked twice until brown and hard that people eat as a snack or babies chew
A slice of sweet bread that is baked twice until it turns hard and crisp
How Crisp
Surface Forms
Morphology
This is a straightforward place-name + food-noun compound: a B1 learner who knows 'Brussels' (a place) and 'biscuit' (a sweet, crisp baked snack) will readily infer it denotes a type of biscuit associated with Brussels. The precise technical detail about being a twice-baked slice is a subtype specification but does not prevent understanding the overall referent, so the expression is compositional and transparent.
Etymology
Brussels biscuit may come from the city of Brussels, where bakers cut soft, sweet bread into thin slices and baked them again until they were dry and crunchy. So, the idea of a biscuit being 'baked again' explains why a Brussels biscuit today is a hard, sweet slice perfect for dipping into hot drinks.