Meaning & use
omelet
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Meaning
nouncountable
A dish of beaten eggs cooked in a pan, usually folded over a filling such as cheese or vegetables.
Grammar: Countable: an omelet, two omelets. British spelling is omelette.
Patterns
- an omelet with something
- make an omelet
She ordered a cheese omelet and a cup of coffee.
I made a mushroom omelet for breakfast this morning.
The diner is known for its fluffy three-egg omelet.
Word forms
| plural | omelets |
|---|
Common combinations
- make an omelet
- You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs, as the saying goes.
- cheese omelet
- The cheese omelet came with toast and fruit.
- Spanish omelet
- A Spanish omelet is made with potatoes and onions.
- fold an omelet
- Fold the omelet when the edges are set and the center is still soft.
- western omelet
- He ordered a Western omelet with ham, peppers and onions.
Synonyms and how they differ
- frittata
- A frittata is an Italian egg dish that is usually finished in the oven and not folded, so it is thicker than an omelet.
- scramble
- A scramble is eggs stirred while cooking, so there is no folded shape as with an omelet.
- tortilla
- In Spain a tortilla is a thick potato and egg dish, which differs from the thin folded omelet.
Word family
- omelette noun
- the British spelling of omelet
- egg noun
- the main ingredient of an omelet
- omelet pan noun
- a shallow, sloping pan for cooking omelets
Commonly confused: omelet or omelette?
omelet vs omelette
Omelette is the British spelling and is correct in British English, while omelet is standard in American English.
Practice
Which spelling is the standard American form of the egg dish?
Choose one answer.
Omelet is the standard American spelling, and omelette is the British one. The other forms are misspellings.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “omelet”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.