Hi there! Do you like donuts? I’m standing outside a donut shop, and wow, look at the size of this donut! It’s huge! Today, we’re going to explore a fun question from someone named Connell. He asked, “How did donuts get their name?” That’s a great question! Let’s find out together.
Have you ever wondered why things are called what they are? We could have called donuts something silly like “schmoop la doops,” but we call them donuts. To solve this mystery, we use a special tool called a dictionary. You might know that a dictionary tells us how to spell words and what they mean. But there’s a special kind of dictionary called an etymology dictionary.
Etymology is the story of a word. It tells us why we chose to call something by its name. So, let’s look up “donut” in the etymology dictionary to find our first clue.
You might see “donut” spelled like this: D-O-N-U-T. But it used to be spelled “doughnut.” Can you guess where part of the word comes from? Let’s break it down!
The first part of “doughnut” is “dough.” Donuts are made from dough, which is the same stuff we use to make bread. So that’s the dough part!
Now, what about the “nut” part? Donuts don’t look like nuts, right? But here’s the story: donuts came from the Dutch, who called them “olykoeks,” meaning oil cakes. They were balls of dough fried in oil. These original donuts didn’t have holes and looked like round globs of dough. Some people thought they looked like nuts, like almonds. So, they became known as “donuts” because they were fried balls of dough shaped like nuts.
Thanks to the etymology dictionary, we learned the story behind the word “donut.” What other words do you think would be interesting to look up? You can explore more word stories using an online etymology dictionary at etymonline.com.
That’s all for today’s question. Thanks, Connell, for asking it! There are so many mysteries around us. Keep being curious and exploring the world of words. See you next time!
Word Detective: Become a word detective and explore the origins of other food names! With the help of an adult, choose a few of your favorite foods and look them up in an online etymology dictionary. Write down what you discover about each word’s history. Share your findings with your classmates and see if they can guess the origins before you reveal them!
Make Your Own “Doughnut”: Create your own version of a “doughnut” using playdough or clay. Think about the original “olykoeks” and try to shape your dough into something that looks like a nut. Once you’ve made your creation, explain to a friend or family member why you chose that shape and what you learned about the history of donuts.
Invent a New Word: Imagine you are an inventor of a new snack. What would you call it? Think about what it’s made of and how it looks. Write a short story about how your new snack got its name. Share your story with the class and see if they can come up with their own creative names for your snack!
Sure! Here’s a sanitized version of the transcript:
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[PHONE RINGING] Hi, it’s Doug. Are you a fan of donuts? Well, I’m standing outside a donut shop near my house. Look at the size of this! Isn’t that huge? We got a question about donuts this week from someone named Connell. So let’s give him a call now. [PHONE RINGING] Hi, Doug. Hi, Connell. I have a question for you. How did donuts get their name? That’s a great question. Why do we call donuts donuts? To be honest, we could have called them anything. We could have called them schmoop la doops or sassenfringles. But no, we call them donuts. Why?
What’s interesting about questions like this is figuring out how anything came to be called what it’s called. To solve this kind of mystery, there’s a special tool—this thing. It’s a special kind of book, a dictionary. Now, you might know that a dictionary is a book that has every word in our language. You can look up any word, and it tells you how to spell it and what that word means. This thing is a special kind of dictionary called an etymology dictionary.
Now let me tell you what that means. Etymology means the story of a word. So this doesn’t tell you what a word means. Instead, if you look up a word in this book, it tells you the story of the word. It tells you why we chose to call the word that word. So what I can do is look up “donut” in the etymology dictionary, and here we get our first clue.
Now, you might have seen “donut” spelled like this—D-O-N-U-T, right? That’s how a lot of people spell it today. But “donut” is sometimes spelled like this, and this is how it used to be spelled. Does that give you any clues? Just by looking at the word, can you tell where at least part of the word “donut” comes from? Now would be a good time to pause the video if you want to take a guess.
You ready? Look at the first part of that word, the “dough” part of the word “doughnut.” You might have heard of dough before. Donuts are made of dough. It’s the same stuff we use to make bread. So that’s the dough part. But now what about the second part of that word, “nut”? A donut doesn’t look like a nut. What’s it got to do with a nut? It seems like nothing. But if you look in the etymology dictionary, it tells us.
Donuts weren’t always a thing. They were introduced from the Dutch, who called them “olykoeks.” Now that’s Dutch for oil cake. It’s dough that you fry in oil, which makes it become cake. So you got oil cake. Now that name didn’t catch on for them. So why would we start calling them donuts?
Well, notice what those original Dutch donuts looked like. Do you notice how they don’t have a hole in them? There’s no hole. We think of donuts as round with a hole in it. I mean, if it doesn’t have that, it’s not a donut, right? But it turns out the hole came later. You see, instead, donuts used to look like this—a round glob of dough. A lot of people thought that the shape of this looked like a nut, almost like an almond. So the name became “donut” because it’s a fried ball of dough that seemed to be in the shape of a nut.
There you have it, all of this thanks to the special tool, the etymology dictionary, a book that tells you the story of a word. What other words do you think would be interesting to look up in an etymology dictionary? Well, if you want to look up any word, here’s an etymology dictionary online that you can go to—etymonline.com.
That’s all for this week’s question. Thanks, Connell, for asking it. Now for the next episode, I reached into my question jar and found three questions submitted to me that I’m thinking about answering. When this video is done playing, you’ll get to vote on one. You can choose from, “Where does metal come from?” or “Why isn’t Pluto considered a planet anymore?” or “How high can an airplane go?” So submit your vote when the video’s over. I want to hear from all of you watching. There are mysteries all around us. Stay curious. And see you next week.
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