water biscuit
- noun
- /ˈwɔːtə ˈbɪskɪt/
- UK
:
galleta de agua
- For the party, I served a selection of cheeses along with water biscuits.
Examples
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The cheese platter included grapes and water biscuits, making for a light snack.
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Uh, some water biscuits or a French roll.
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Putting bows on faggy little olives and water biscuits is not a job.
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She enjoyed her afternoon tea with a few water biscuits on the side.
How Dry
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly derivable from combining 'water' (indicating an ingredient or characteristic) with 'biscuit' (a small, crisp baked item): it denotes a plain, thin, crisp biscuit made with water. This simple ingredient/modifier + food-noun composition is cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents would plausibly infer the intended sense.
Etymology
Water biscuit comes from how the biscuit was made: plain dough of flour and water with little or no fat, so the biscuit is thin and dry. That's why a water biscuit today means a crisp, plain cracker often served with cheese.