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jelly doughnut

jelly doughnut

7 1.3
A soft round fried sweet bread filled with jam
  • noun
  • /ˈdʒɛli ˈdoʊnʌt/
translation icon : dona de mermelada
  • He buys a New York Times and a jelly doughnut.
  • eat a jelly doughnut
  • coffee and jelly doughnuts
  • a dozen jelly doughnuts

Would this Jelly doughnut then be a health food?

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Examples

  • I also picked up some lovely jelly doughnuts on the way in from the airport.

    Fiction book (1993)
  • At night we'd snuggle up in the back and tell creepy stories, and then have jelly doughnuts for breakfast.

    Fiction book (1996)
  • - Can I get you a jelly doughnut or something, man?

  • - Give me a jelly doughnut.

  • Someone stole my jelly doughnut.

  • She washed down her jelly doughnut with a diet cola.

    Fiction book (1994)
  • Murphy had a jelly donut and a cup of coffee as Dolly spread a copy of the Boston Globe in front of Murphy.

    Fiction book (1999)
  • Man, I’d give my shirt about now for a half-dozen jelly doughnuts.

    Fiction book (1999)
  • It just goes to show that being uptight about eating all the right foods is worse for your health than munching a jelly doughnut and enjoying every minute of it.

    Fiction book (1993)
  • I'm going to treat myself to one of these delicious jelly doughnuts for dessert.

Synonyms

donut
vsjelly doughnut
  • US
134 1.0

A small sweet fried cake usually shaped like a ring or filled

is the specific jelly-filled, soft raised form rather than the general sweet fried cake
bismark
vsjelly doughnut
  • US
1 9.5

A raised doughnut filled with jam

has identical meaning but is an alternative name
Berlin doughnut
vsjelly doughnut
  • UK
5.2

A sweet fried dough ball filled with jam and covered in sugar

focuses on soft raised texture rather than frying or sugar coating

Surface Forms

jelly doughnut singular
jelly donuts plural
jelly donut singular

Morphology

jelly + donut

The compound is directly compositional: 'jelly' names the filling/topping and 'doughnut' names the pastry, so a learner who knows both words will infer a doughnut containing or flavored with jelly. This noun+noun modification pattern is cross-linguistically common and follows ordinary English compounding, making the meaning immediately accessible to a B1 learner.

Etymology

Jelly doughnut comes from the simple picture of a doughnut filled with jelly. Bakers cook a round piece of dough and then push jam into the middle, so the name means 'a doughnut with jelly inside'.