Meaning & use
a wonton
Last updated
Meaning
nouncountable
A small Chinese dumpling with a thin wrapper, usually filled with meat or shrimp and served in soup or fried.
Grammar: Countable: one wonton, two wontons. Often plural in 'wonton soup'.
Patterns
- wonton soup
- fried wontons
I ordered a bowl of wonton soup for lunch.
She folded each wonton carefully before dropping it into the boiling water.
Word forms
| plural | wontons |
|---|
Common combinations
- wonton soup
- The wonton soup came with a sprinkle of green onion.
- fried wontons
- We shared a plate of fried wontons as an appetizer.
- wonton wrapper
- You can buy wonton wrappers in the frozen section.
- make wontons
- Grandma taught me how to make wontons from scratch.
Synonyms and how they differ
- dumpling
- Dumpling is a general word for many filled dough foods; wonton is a specific Chinese type with a thin wrapper.
- potsticker
- A potsticker is a different Chinese dumpling, usually pan-fried and with a thicker wrapper; a wonton is thinner and often boiled in soup.
Commonly confused: a wonton or want ton?
a wonton vs want ton
Wonton is one word, not two. Do not confuse it with 'want ton', which is not a standard phrase.
Practice
For dinner we had a bowl of ______ soup with pork dumplings.
Choose one answer.
In 'wonton soup', 'wonton' is used like an adjective before the noun, so it stays singular. 'Wontons' would be plural, and the possessive forms don't fit.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “a wonton”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.