toast

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /təʊst/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /toʊst/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -əʊst

From Middle English tost, from the verb tosten (see below).

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium. Particularly: “How did it come to mean a salutation?”)

toast (countable and uncountable, plural toasts)

1. (uncountable) Toasted bread.
   • 1991, Stephen Fry, The Liar, page 23:

     Tea was a very special institution, revolving as it did around the ceremony and worship of Toast. In [public schools] where alcohol, tobacco and drugs were forbidden, it was essential that something should take their place as a powerful and public totem of virility and cool. Toast, for reasons lost in time, was the substance chosen.

   I ate a piece of toast for breakfast.

2. (countable) A proposed salutation (e.g. to say "cheers") while drinking alcohol.

   At the reception, there were many toasts from the well-wishers.

3. (countable) A person, group, or notable object to which a salutation with alcohol is made; a person or group held in similar esteem.

   He was the toast of high society.

   • 2014 May 28, John McWhorter, “Saint Maya”, in The New Republic‎, ISSN 0028-6583:

     Josephine Baker did not become the toast of Paris by just shaking her booty for some theater gypsies as a party wound down.

4. (slang, chiefly US, uncountable) Something that will be no more; something subject to impending destruction, harm or injury.

   If I ever get my hands on the guy that stole my wallet, he’s toast!

5. (slang, Jamaica) Extemporaneous narrative poem or rap.
6. (computing, graphical user interface) A transient, informational unclickable pop-up overlay, less interactive than a snackbar.
   • 2012, Nick Lecrenski, Doug Holland, Allen Sanders, Professional Windows 8 Programming:

     With the new Windows Push Notification Service, you can remotely send notifications from a cloud-based web service. In Windows 8, the majority of the Toast messages are standard duration toasts.

The slang sense of something or someone subject to impending destruction is most commonly found predicatively in the combination be (or become) toast.

• torrent
• torrid

From Middle English tosten, from Old French toster (“to roast, grill”), from Latin tostus (“grilled, burnt”), from verb torreō (“to burn, grill”).

toast (third-person singular simple present toasts, present participle toasting, simple past and past participle toasted)

1. To lightly cook by browning via direct exposure to a fire or other heat source.

   We liked to toast marshmallows around the campfire.

2. To grill, lightly cook by browning specifically under a grill or in a toaster

   Top with cheese and toast under the grill for a few minutes.

3. To engage in a salutation and/or accompanying raising of glasses while drinking alcohol in honor of someone or something.

   We toasted the happy couple many times over the course of the evening.

4. To warm thoroughly.

   I toasted my feet by the fire.

5. (slang, Jamaica) To perform extemporaneous narrative poem or rap.

• retoast

• Douglas Harper (2001–2023), “toast”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

• stato-, stoat, tasto, toats, totas

Borrowed from English toast.

• IPA^(key): /toːst/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: toast
• Rhymes: -oːst
• Homophone: toost

toast m (plural toasts, diminutive toastje n)

1. (chiefly diminutive) Melba toast

• toasten

toast

1. elative singular of tuba

Borrowed from English toast. Doublet of tôt.

• IPA^(key): /tɔst/

• Audio

  (file)

toast m (plural toasts)

1. toast (bread)
2. toast (salutation)

• “toast”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• tosto (rare)

Pseudo-anglicism, from English toast.

• IPA^(key): /ˈtɔst/
• Rhymes: -ɔst

toast m (invariable)

1. toasted sandwich

• toast in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana

• stato, tasto, tastò, tosta

Borrowed from English toast.

toast m (definite singular toasten, indefinite plural toaster, definite plural toastene)

1. toast (toasted bread)

• ristet brød

• “toast” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Borrowed from English toast.

toast m (definite singular toasten, indefinite plural toastar, definite plural toastane)

1. toast (toasted bread)

• rista brød

• “toast” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Borrowed from English toast.

• IPA^(key): /ˈtɔ.ast/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔast
• Syllabification: to‧ast

toast m inan

1. toast (proposed salutation)

• toast in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• toast in Polish dictionaries at PWN

From French toast.

toast n (plural toasturi)

1. toast (salutation when drinking alcohol)