ladle
/ˈleɪd(ə)l
/noun
1A large long-handled spoon with a cup-shaped bowl, used for serving soup or sauce: she dipped the ladle into the casserole dish...
- The noodles are presented in large stone bowls, and the soup spoons are wooden ladles.
- Place the cheese in a bowl with 2 ladles of hot soup, stir to melt then return to the pan.
- Kitchen utensils include pots, bowls, cooking ladles, and spoons made of coconut shells.
Synonyms
spoon, scoop, dipper, bailer
1.1A container for transporting molten metal in a foundry.Now, lift the ladle from the mold, and allow a small puddle to form on top of the sprue plate before returning the ladle to the molten lead....
- Give it a few minutes to come to full temperature, and then, after fluxing the metal, the first ladle full of lead is lifted to the pre-heated mold.
- Molten metal is sometimes transferred directly in insulated ladles from the smelter to the customer's plant, occasionally over distances up to several hundred miles.
verb [with object and adverbial]
1Serve (soup, stew, or sauce) with a ladle: she ladled out onion soup...
- To serve, ladle the soup into warm bowls, top with some smokies, drizzle with oil.
- To serve, ladle the soup into bowls and add the mussels.
- The method of distribution required people to line up in front of the public Famine Pot, saucepans and pans in hand, waiting for the soup to be ladled out.
Synonyms
spoon out, scoop out, dish up/out, serve;
bail out
1.1Provide (information, advice, etc.) lavishly or overgenerously: he was ladling out his personal philosophy of life...
- Year after year he had watched MI6 officers professionally eager to inflate their resourcefulness ladling out off-the-books money to informants with every incentive to inflate their discoveries.
- In the past we have ladled out the money but have no hard evidence that services to the public have improved proportionately.
Derivatives
ladleful
/ noun (plural ladlefuls) ...- Add the vermouth, garlic and cayenne, boil the liquid away and start adding ladlefuls of the seaweed and saffron-flavoured vegetable stock, stirring vigorously all the while to aid absorption and prevent sticking.
- Once the chickpeas are tender, remove the herb sprigs (don't worry if the leaves have fallen off), and put four ladlefuls of the soup into a blender with two ladlefuls of very hot water.
- Keeping the stock bubbling gently away in a pan beside the risotto pan, add one ladle at a time - adding only when the ladleful is absorbed - and stirring well.
ladler
- The pea-soup condition was met by wheeled ‘mud-carts’ each attended by two ladlers clothed as for Icelandic seas in thigh boots, oilskins collared to the chin, and sou'westers sealing in the back of the neck.
- The apostles did not see their primary task as soup ladlers.
Origin
Old English hlædel, from hladan (see lade1).