Meaning & use
parkin
Last updated
Meaning
noununcountableBritishregional
A dark, sticky northern English cake made with oatmeal, treacle and ginger, traditionally eaten in autumn.
Grammar: Usually uncountable: a slice of parkin, but a parkin for a whole cake.
Patterns
- a slice of parkin
- bake parkin
My grandmother always baked parkin for Bonfire Night.
The parkin gets stickier if you keep it wrapped for a few days.
We had tea and a slice of parkin at the village cafe.
Word forms
| plural | parkins |
|---|
Common combinations
- slice of parkin
- She cut me a thick slice of parkin.
- bake parkin
- We bake parkin every November.
- sticky parkin
- The sticky parkin clung to my fingers.
- Yorkshire parkin
- Yorkshire parkin is best after a week in the tin.
- parkin with cheese
- Some people eat parkin with a slice of Wensleydale cheese.
Synonyms and how they differ
- gingerbread
- Gingerbread is the general term for ginger cakes or biscuits, while parkin is a specific northern cake that includes oatmeal.
- treacle cake
- Treacle cake describes the main flavor but not the oatmeal base that marks parkin.
- ginger cake
- Ginger cake is a broader family, and parkin is a denser, oaty regional type.
Word family
- treacle noun
- thick dark syrup used in parkin
- oatmeal noun
- ground oats, the base of parkin
- Bonfire Night proper noun
- 5 November, when parkin is traditionally eaten
Commonly confused: parkin or parking?
parkin vs parking
Parking is leaving a vehicle somewhere, while parkin is a cake with no letter g.
Practice
Parkin is best described as which of the following?
Choose one answer.
Parkin is a dark, sticky cake made with oatmeal, treacle and ginger. The other options are unrelated or confuse it with parking.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “parkin”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.