Skip to main content
to lick out the bowl

to lick out the bowl

8.2
To eat the last food in a bowl with your tongue
  • phrasal verb
translation icon : lamer el bol
  • He waited until everyone had finished before he licked out the bowl of icing.

Examples

  • Don't forget to lick out the bowl after mixing the batter!

  • Emma always licks out the bowl when she bakes cookies.

  • As soon as I finished baking, the children rushed to lick out the bowl.

  • She loves to lick out the bowl after making chocolate cake batter.

  • The children were excited to lick out the bowl after making their favorite chocolate cake.

  • After preparing the icing, she let her dog lick out the bowl to clean it thoroughly.

  • He savored each moment as he licked out the bowl to get every last bit of frosting.

Synonyms

to lick
vsto lick out the bowl
310 1.0

To pass the tongue over something to taste or clean it

is specific to removing and eating leftover food from a dish
to lick out
vsto lick out the bowl
8.4

Use your tongue to remove food or liquid from inside a container

is focused on eating the remaining contents after food preparation

Antonyms

To not take or change something so it stays where it is

How Clean

to finish
1.0
to lick out the bowl
8.2
scraping
9 4.4

Surface Forms

lick out the bowl infinitive
licked out the bowl past participle
licking out the bowl present participle
licks out the bowl third person singular

Morphology

lick + out + the + bowl

The meaning is directly and compositionally derived from the parts: 'lick' (use the tongue) + 'out' (remove from the interior) + 'bowl' (container), so the phrase literally describes removing and eating the remaining contents. The removal sense of 'out' with a container is a common, cross-linguistic compositional pattern, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents will readily understand this expression.

Etymology

Lick out the bowl comes from the simple, literal picture of someone using their lick, meaning the tongue, to clean every last bit from a bowl after cooking. That's why it means 'to use your tongue to remove and eat the last bits of food from a bowl'.