custard

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a sweet dessert or sauce made from milk or cream, eggs, and usually sugar, thickened by heating

   She poured warm custard over the apple pie.

2. 2
   noun

   a similar sweet sauce thickened with starch or custard powder rather than eggs

   The school served vanilla custard made with milk and custard powder.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Custard originally meant an open pie, spelled crustarde or custarde, containing meat or fruit in a seasoned sauce thickened with eggs. Its name came from Old French crouste, “crust,” ultimately from Latin crusta, “rind, shell, crust.” Over time the word shifted from the whole pie to the egg-thickened sauce itself.

An alteration of Middle English crustade or croustade, a pie with a crust, from Old French crouste ("crust"). The name gradually shifted from the pastry case to its egg-and-milk filling and then to the modern sauce or dessert.

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External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary