bake

Etymology

From Middle English baken, from Old English bacan (“to bake”), from Proto-West Germanic *bakan, from Proto-Germanic *bakaną (“to bake”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₃g- (“to roast, bake”). Cognate with West Frisian bakke (“to bake”), Dutch bakken (“to bake”), Low German backen (“to bake”), German backen (“to bake”), Norwegian Bokmål bake (“to bake”), Danish bage (“to bake”), Swedish baka (“to bake”), Ancient Greek φώγω (phṓgō, “roast”, verb).

verb

1. (transitive or intransitive or ditransitive, with person as subject) To cook (something) in an oven (for someone).
   I baked a delicious cherry pie.
   She's been baking all day to prepare for the dinner.
   He baked her a cake.
2. (intransitive, with baked thing as subject) To be cooked in an oven.
   The cake baked at 350°F.
3. (intransitive) To be warmed to drying and hardening.
   The clay baked in the sun.
4. (transitive) To dry by heat.
   They baked the electrical parts lightly to remove moisture.
5. (intransitive, figurative) To be hot.
   It is baking in the greenhouse.
   I'm baking after that workout in the gym.
6. (transitive, figurative) To cause to be hot.
   My dad told me about his days in the Navy: He'd agreed to be a guinea pig in exchange for a shorter enlistment. […] They baked him in the sun. 2008 October, Davy Rothbart, “How I caught up with dad”, in Men's Health, volume 23, number 8, →ISSN, page 112
7. (intransitive, slang) To smoke marijuana.
8. (transitive, obsolete) To harden by cold.
9. (computer graphics, transitive) To fix (lighting, reflections, etc.) as part of the texture of an object to improve rendering performance.
10. (figurative, with "in" or "into") To incorporate into something greater.
    Disagreements between pilots' unions are baked into the merger cake. 2014, United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Subcommittee on Aviation Operations, Safety, and Security, Airline Industry Consolidation: Hearing, page 36
    Many of the causes of governmental dysfunction are simply baked into the cake of American politics and will never change. 2016, David B. Woolner, John M. Thompson, Progressivism in America: Past, Present and Future, page 100

noun

1. The act of cooking food by baking.
   Taking one of her cakes or a tray of biscuits from the oven always gives her satisfaction and a moment of pride; that is, of course, unless there happens to be some little element that doesn't please her with the bake. 2015, Patricia Grace, Chappy
2. (especially UK, Australia, New Zealand) Any of various baked dishes resembling casserole.
   A fish bake made with cod chunks, sliced parboiled potatoes, […] 2009, Dictionary of Food: International Food and Cooking Terms from A to Z
   If you happen to have small, heat-proof glass or ceramic pots in your kitchen (known as ramekins) then you can make this very easy pasta bake in fun-size, individual portions. 2009, Rosalind Peters, Kate Pankhurst, Clive Boursnell, Midnight Feast Magic: Sleepover Fun and Food
3. Any food item that is baked.
   Baking parchment should not be confused with greaseproof paper — the former has a non-stick coating and will ensure that your bakes lift out of the tin or off the baking sheets easily, the latter will have the opposite effect! 2016, Annie Rigg, Great British Bake Off: Children's Party Cakes & Bakes
4. (US) A social event at which food (such as seafood) is baked, or at which baked food is served.
   The central episode is the temporary burial of the novitiate; a shallow pit is excavated, and in this a fire is made, as for a fish bake; […] 1904, Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology
   I am about to launch a scheme for our local to invest a few dollars in a spot where the boys will know where to find company and pass a few hours or a week-end out in the fresh air and partake of shrimp bakes or fish fries and so forget the on-creeping years. 1939, The American Photo-engraver, volume 31, page 289
   […] also featured a fish bake, a dance, and a beach party[.] 2006, Jeffery P. Sandman, Peter R. Sandman, Soaring and Gliding: The Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore Area
5. (Barbados, sometimes US and UK) A small, flat (or ball-shaped) cake of dough eaten in Barbados and sometimes elsewhere, similar in appearance and ingredients to a pancake but fried (or in some places sometimes roasted).
   For quotations using this term, see Citations:bake.