Forms: 4 besquite, 5 bysqwyte, -cute, 56 bysket, 68 bisket, 8 biscuit. (Also, casually, 6 biskett, -kette, -ked, -kitte, -kott, -ky, -quette, -quite; 67 bisquet; 7 bisquett, biscot, -coct.) [a. OF. 12th c. bescoit, 13th c. bescuit, 16th c. biscut, mod.F. biscuit, a common Romanic word (= Pr. bescueit, Cat. bescuyt, Sp. bizcocho, Pg. biscuto, It. biscotto) on L. type *biscoctum (panem), bread twice baked, from the original mode of preparation. The regular form in Eng. from 16th to 18th c. was bisket, as still pronounced; the current biscuit is a senseless adoption of the mod. French spelling, without the Fr. pronunciation.]
1. A kind of crisp dry bread more or less hard, prepared generally in thin flat cakes. The essential ingredients are flour and water, or milk, without leaven; but confectionery and fancy biscuits are very variously composed and flavored. Even the characteristic of hardness implied in the name is lost in the sense A kind of small, baked cake, usually fermented, made of flour, milk, etc. used, according to Webster, in U.S.
c. 1330. R. Brunne, Chron. (1810), 171. Armour þei had plente, & god besquite to mete.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 48. Bysqwyte biscoctus.
1555. Fardle Facions, II. vii. 159. Their daiely foode is hard Bisquette.
1569. Crawley, Soph. Dr. Watson, ii. 169. The bread was such as was prouided to serue at neede, or in warres, for it was Bisket, that is twice baked, and without leauen or salt.
1595. Sir J. Gilbert, in N. & Q., Ser. III. (1864), Feb., 109/1. 1400 tones off corn too be bakyd ynto bysky.
1600. Shaks., A. Y. L., II. vii. 39. As drie as the remainder bisket After a voyage.
1697. Dampier, Voy. (1729), I. 303. Bread of fine Wheat Flower, baked like Bisket, but not so hard.
1755. Johnson, Bisket: see BISCUIT.
1770. Fitz-Henry, Observ. Barettis Journ., i. 90. I call for a bisket and a glass of Madeira.
1860. All Y. Round, No. 63. 302. Munching an Abernethy biscuit.
2. Pottery. The name given to porcelain and other pottery-ware after having undergone the first firing, and before being glazed, painted, or otherwise embellished; also fig.
1791. E. Darwin, Bot. Gard., I. 87. The kneaded clay refines, The biscuit hardens, the enamel shines.
1864. J. Harford, Recoll. Wilberforce, i. 21. What an interesting creature is Dunn! he is formed of the finest biscuit.
1880. Ch. M. Mason, Forty Shires, 158. Potters Biscuit is the dough after it has been made into vessels and baked.
3. Comb. and attrib. a. attrib., as (in sense 1) biscuit-bag, -box, -cask, -figure, -manufactory, -sack, -worm; (of the color of a biscuit, light-brown), as biscuit satin; also dry-biscuit-jest, -rogue; (in sense 2) biscuit-body, -china, clay, oven, stage, state, ware. b. objective, as biscuit-baker, -baking, -beater, -cast, -maker, -making, -throw, -toss (cf. STONES THROW). c. parasynthetic and similative, as biscuit-brained, -colo(u)red, -like, -shaped.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., I. III. viii. 132. A sinking pilot will fling out his very *biscuit-bags.
1707. Lond. Gaz., No. 4332/8. Caleb Claggett, *Biscuit Baker.
1865. L. Simpson, Handbk. Dining, ii. (ed. 3), 27. Biscuit bakers hold a middle path between pastry cooks and confectioners.
1783. Wedgwood, in Phil. Trans., LXXIII. 285. Mixed with porcelain *biscuit body.
1886. Times, 24 Feb., 9/6. Private Leonard Ratcliff showed great coolness and energy while constructing the *biscuit-box redoubt under fire at Gubat.
1853. Kane, Grinnell Exp., xlix. (1856), 461. Within short *biscuit-cast.
1862. Mayhew, Crim. Prisons, 129. As white as slabs of *biscuit-china.
1599. B. Jonson, Ev. Man out of Hum., Grex 157. [He] breaks a drie *bisquet-jest, Which He steepes in his owne laughter.
1836. Todd, Cycl. Anat. & Phys., I. 746/1. The rough *biscuit-like surface of the bone.
1835. Penny Cycl., IV. 452/1. Our description of *biscuit-making. Ibid. The largest *biscuit-manufactories are those for supplying the navy.
1620. Fletcher, Fr. Lawyer, II. i. 58. Ze dry *bisket rogue!
1779. Johnson, Drake, Wks. IV. 410. A sail made of a *bisket sack.
1884. Pall Mall Gaz., 8 April, 4/2. In dinner and evening dresses the biscuit colour is equally popular. An evening dress of *biscuit satin.
1865. Daily Tel., 3 Nov., 5/5. It is fired for about sixty hours and is then in what is called the *biscuit state.
1833. Marryat, P. Simple (1863), 340. Running the brig within *biscuit-throw of the weather schooner.
1782. Wedgwood, in Phil. Trans., LXXII. 307. The kiln in which the *biscuit ware is fired.
1798. Coleridge, Anc. Mar., I. xvii. The mariners gave it *biscuit-worms.
4. Biscuit bread. Formerly used as BISCUIT.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 37. Byscute brede, biscoctus.
1555. Eden, Decades W. Ind., I. III. (Arb.), 77. The vytayles (especially the byskette breade) corrupted.
1616. Surfl. & Markh., Countr. Farm, 583. Physitians appoint bisket bread for such as are troubled with rheumes.
1684. trans. Bonets Merc. Compit., X. 364. Adust humours, which are increased by Biscoct Bread.
Hence Biscuiting vbl. sb., the first baking of earthenware or similar material.
1871. Echo, 6 Jan. This first burning is technically termed biscuiting.