Definition of zwieback
: a usually sweetened bread enriched with eggs that is baked and then sliced and toasted until dry and crisp
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zwieback was our Word of the Day on 02/24/2016. Hear the podcast!
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Crunch on the History of zwieback
In ages past, keeping food fresh for any length of time required a lot of ingenuity, especially when one needed to carry comestibles on a long journey. One of the solutions people came up with for keeping bread edible for traveling was to bake it twice, thereby drying it and slowing the spoiling process. The etymology of zwieback reflects this baker's trick; it was borrowed from a German word that literally means "twice baked." Nowadays, zwieback is not just used as a foodstuff—the texture of the dried bread makes zwieback a suitable teething device for infants. Incidentally, other twice-baked goods whose origins reflect that fact include biscuit and biscotti, both of which come from phrases meaning "twice-cooked bread."
ZWIEBACK Defined for English Language Learners
Definition of zwieback for English Language Learners
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: a dry, hard bread that is eaten especially by young children
ZWIEBACK Defined for Kids
Definition of zwieback for Students
: a usually sweetened bread made with eggs that is baked and then sliced and toasted until dry and crisp
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