Middle English Dictionary Entry

bāken v.
Quotations: Show all Hide all

Entry Info

Forms bāken v. Forms: p. bọ̄k & (late) bāked; ppl. bāke(n, ibāke
Etymology OE bacan, bōc, bacen.

Definitions (Senses and Subsenses)

Note: Cp. ibaken v.
1a.
(a) To bake (bread, beans, apples in an oven or in ashes); also fig.; (b) half baken, half-baked; sengle ~, baked once; twies ~ bred, twice-baked bread, biscuit; dough ~, baked of leavened dough.
Show 24 Quotations
1b.
To bake (fish, fowl, meat) incased in dough; ~ in bred (dough, paste); also, to roast.
Show 10 Quotations
1c.
To do or undergo baking, to be baking.
Show 8 Quotations
2.
To treat with heat; melt (butter); baken flour, parched flour; ~ win, mulled wine.
Show 4 Quotations
3.
(a) To fire (tiles, bricks); (b) to calcine (a mineral); (c) to dry (sth.) out (as through exposure to heat or air); baken in blod, caked with blood.
Show 8 Quotations
4.
Fig. (a) To roast (in hell); (b) to prepare or bring on (one's own suffering, etc.); (c) mi bred is bake, I am done for, my goose is cooked; (d) baken bred in cheke, to cram one's mouth full of food.
Show 6 Quotations

Supplemental Materials (draft)

  • ?a1475(a1396) Hilton SP (Hrl 6579)185/4 : He may not ben made riȝte and euen withoute grete beykynge and bowynge, riȝt as a croked staf may not be made euen, bot if it be keste & beiked [vrr. beþyd, weykyd] in þee fiire.
    • Note: New form: P. beiked.
    Note: New subsense for sense 3..
    Note: Gloss: "To heat (wood) to render it more pliable."
  • ?a1475 *Noble Bk.Cook.(Hlk 674) : Ye may mak your cerip of creme of almondes..as ye did of flesche and when they be bak, gilt the stalkes of the peres and serue them.
    • Note: New form: P.ppl. bak.
    Note: Folio reference needed. (Quot. found on page 54 in R. Napier, A Noble Boke off Cookry.)
    Note: Quot. belongs to sense 1a.(a).
Note: The list of variant spellings in the form section is incomplete and needs revision to accord with standards of later volumes of the MED.--all notes per MLL

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