WordGarden.iospatula
C2Pronunciation
UK
- /spˈætjʊlə/
US
- /ˈspæˌtʃʊlə/
Meanings
Noun
a flat kitchen utensil used for turning, lifting, scraping, or spreading food
a small flat-bladed tool used to spread, scrape, lift, or mix substances in technical work
Beyond the definition
Imagine you're making pancakes. What do you use to flip them without tearing them apart? A spatula! But a spatula isn't just for flipping. It's a wonderfully versatile, broad, and usually flat tool used in the kitchen for spreading frosting on cakes, scraping bowls clean, or even serving food.
You might use a metal spatula for hot cooking, a rubber or silicone spatula for folding and scraping, or an offset spatula for spreading frosting. It is a simple kitchen tool, but it helps with many everyday jobs when you cook or bake.
A spatula is a broad, flat utensil used for lifting, flipping, spreading, scraping, and sometimes mixing. It is most often linked with cooking and baking, where it helps you handle food gently and neatly. The name has been used for broad, flat tools in different fields, but in everyday English it usually means a kitchen tool.
Today, we primarily think of it as a kitchen tool, and it comes in several common forms. Metal spatulas are great for frying and flipping foods like pancakes, eggs, or burgers. Rubber or silicone spatulas are useful for scraping batter from a bowl or folding ingredients together. Offset spatulas, with their angled blades, are often used to spread frosting smoothly on cakes. Some people also use the word for fish turners and similar flat tools for lifting delicate food.
Whether you are lifting a delicate crepe, spreading peanut butter, turning a burger, or getting the last bit of batter from a bowl, a spatula is one of those small tools that makes cooking and baking much easier.
Examples
- 1
Pancakes
Use a spatula to flip the pancakes.
- 2
Baking
She scraped the cake batter out of the bowl with a rubber spatula.
- 3
Delicate food
The fish was so delicate that he used two spatulas to lift it onto the plate.
See also
Forms and spellings
3 forms open this card.
Main spelling
- spatulanoun
Forms
- spatulaspluralnoun
- spatulaepluralnoun