Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A topping for pastry or pies made of a mixture of egg whites and sugar beaten until stiff and often baked until brown.
  • noun A small pastry shell or cake made of stiffly beaten, baked egg whites and sugar, often containing fruit or nutmeats.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In cookery, a mixture of white of eggs and sugar slightly browned, used for ornamenting and supplementing other confections. Puddings or tarts, etc., covered with this preparation are sometimes called meringues.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A delicate pastry made of powdered sugar and the whites of eggs whipped up, -- with jam or cream added.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A mixture consisting of beaten egg whites and sugar which is added to the tops of pies then browned.
  • noun A shell made of this mixture which serves as the receptacle for fruit, ice cream or sherbet.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun sweet topping especially for pies made of beaten egg whites and sugar

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French meringue.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Borrowing from French meringue, from Middle Dutch meringue ("light evening meal"), derivative of Middle Dutch *meren ("to dip or soak bread"), from Old Dutch *meren, from Proto-Germanic *marjanan (“to grind, pound”), from Proto-Indo-European *mer- (“to rub, pack”). Cognate with Middle Low German meringe (from mern ("to dip bread in wine")), Middle High German merunge (from mëren ("to soak bread in wine or water for dinner")), Old English merian ("to purify, cleanse, test").

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