flapjack
flapjack Lexical Profile
flapjack Game Scores & Validity
• noun
North American A thin, flat cake of batter fried on both sides on a griddle or in a frying pan; a pancake.
"Every Sunday morning, my grandfather cooked a tall stack of buttermilk flapjacks on his cast-iron griddle."
British A sweet, dense traybake bar made primarily from rolled oats, melted butter, brown sugar, and golden syrup.
"She packed a thermos of tea and a couple of homemade oat flapjacks for their afternoon hike across the moors."
Word Nuance & Usage
The meaning of "flapjack" differs sharply between dialects: in North America it is a synonym for a pancake cooked on a griddle, whereas in British English it refers exclusively to a dense, chewy baked bar made from rolled oats, butter, brown sugar, and golden syrup.
• Rhymes for flapjack
Word Origin & Etymology
First recorded in the early 17th century (and mentioned in Shakespeare's Pericles), the word combines "flap" (in the sense of tossing or flipping food in a pan) with "jack," a generic colloquial term derived from the given name Jack.