Meaning & use

recipe

noun·Everyday

A set of instructions for preparing a particular dish, listing the ingredients and the steps needed.

See it in a sentence

She followed her grandmother's recipe exactly to make the same chocolate cake every year.

Ignoring safety training is a recipe for disaster on a construction site.

A note on using this word

'A recipe for' something is a common figurative phrase meaning a combination of factors likely to produce a particular, often bad, result.

Words with a similar meaning

Choose a synonym to suit the sentence. Meanings can overlap without being identical.

Make it your own

Write a sentence using “recipe”, then compare your use with the examples above.

Your draft stays on this page and is not sent anywhere.