pudding

Meaning

1. Any of various dishes, sweet or savoury, prepared by boiling or steaming, or from batter.
2. A type of cake or dessert cooked usually by boiling or steaming.
3. A type of dessert that has a texture similar to custard or mousse but using some kind of starch as the thickening agent.
4. Dessert; the dessert course of a meal.
5. A sausage made primarily from blood.
6. (slang) An overweight person.
7. A term of endearment.
8. (slang) Entrails.
9. (obsolete) Any food or victuals.
10. (slang) A piece of good fortune.

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ˈpʊd.ɪŋ/

Etymology

From circa 1305, Middle English podynge (“kind of sausage; meat-filled animal stomach”), puddynge, from Old French boudin (“blood sausage, black pudding”), from Latin botellus (“sausage, small intestine”). Doublet of boudin.
* An alternative etymology assumes origin from Proto-Germanic *put-, *pud- (“to swell”) (compare dialectal English pod (“belly”), Old English puduc (“wen, sore”), Low German puddig (“swollen”), Westphalian Puddek (“lump, pudding”), Puddewurst (“black pudding”). More at pout.