toast

• (obsolete) tost

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /təʊst/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /toʊst/
• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /təʉst/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -əʊst

From Middle English tost, from the verb tosten (see below).

• (something that will be no more) Ad-libbed by actor Bill Murray in the 1984 film Ghostbusters (see quotation).[1]

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium. Particularly: “How did it come to mean a salutation?”)

toast (countable and uncountable, plural toasts)

1. (countable, uncountable) Toasted bread.

   I ate a piece of toast for breakfast.

   • 1991, Stephen Fry, The Liar, page 23:

     Tea was a very special institution, revolving as it did around the ceremony and worship of Toast. In [public schools] where alcohol, tobacco and drugs were forbidden, it was essential that something should take their place as a powerful and public totem of virility and cool. Toast, for reasons lost in time, was the substance chosen.

2. (countable) A proposed salutation (e.g. to say "cheers") while drinking alcohol.

   At the reception, there were many toasts from the well-wishers.

3. (countable) A person, group, or notable object to which a salutation with alcohol is made; a person or group held in similar esteem.

   He was the toast of high society.

   • 2014 May 28, John McWhorter, “Saint Maya”, in The New Republic‎, →ISSN:

     Josephine Baker did not become the toast of Paris by just shaking her booty for some theater gypsies as a party wound down.

4. (uncountable, slang, chiefly US) Something that that is irreparably damaged or used up, especially when destroyed by heat or fire; something which has been burnt to a crisp or incinerated.

   The metal frame survived the fire, but the plastic and rubber bits are toast.

5. (uncountable, slang, chiefly US) Something that will be no more; something subject to impending destruction, harm or injury.

   If I ever get my hands on the guy that stole my wallet, he’s toast!

   • 1984, Ghostbusters, spoken by Peter Venkman (Bill Murray):

     This chick is toast!

     The original line was: "I'm gonna turn this guy into toast."

6. (countable, music, slang, Jamaica) A type of extemporaneous narrative poem or rap.
7. (countable, slang, obsolete) An old toast ("a lively fellow who drinks excessively").
8. (countable, computing, graphical user interface) A transient, informational unclickable pop-up overlay, less interactive than a snackbar.
   • 2012, Nick Lecrenski, Doug Holland, Allen Sanders, Professional Windows 8 Programming:

     With the new Windows Push Notification Service, you can remotely send notifications from a cloud-based web service. In Windows 8, the majority of the Toast messages are standard duration toasts.

9. (countable, obsolete outside India) A piece of toast.
   • c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene v], page 52, column 1:

     Go, fetch me a quart of Sacke, put a toſt in't.

• The slang sense of something or someone subject to impending destruction is most commonly found predicatively in the combination be (or become) toast.

• → Bulgarian: тост (tost)
• → Czech: toust, toast
• → Dutch: toost, toast
• → French: toast
  • → Romanian: toast
• → German: Toast
• → Greek: τοστ (tost)
• → Italian: toast
• → Japanese: トースト (tōsuto)
• → Korean: 토스트 (toseuteu)
• → Maori: tōhi
• → Macedonian: тост (tost)
• → Norwegian Bokmål: toast
• → Norwegian Nynorsk: toast
• → Polish: tost, toast
• → Russian: тост (tost)
  • → Armenian: տոստ (tost)
• → Turkish: tost
• → Ukrainian: тост (tost)
• → Welsh: tost

From Middle English tosten, from Old French toster (“to roast, grill”), from Latin tostus (“grilled, burnt”), from verb torreō (“to burn, grill”).

toast (third-person singular simple present toasts, present participle toasting, simple past and past participle toasted)

1. To lightly cook by browning via direct exposure to a fire or other heat source.

   We liked to toast marshmallows around the campfire.

2. To grill, lightly cook by browning specifically under a grill or in a toaster

   Top with cheese and toast under the grill for a few minutes.

3. To engage in a salutation and/or accompanying raising of glasses while drinking alcohol in honor of someone or something.

   We toasted the happy couple many times over the course of the evening.

4. To warm thoroughly.

   I toasted my feet by the fire.

5. (music, slang, Jamaica) To perform extemporaneous narrative poem or rap.
   • 2014, Richard James Burgess, The History of Music Production, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 168:

     Toasting over a record does more than change the way that record is perceived by the audience: it creates a new piece of music with joint creative authorship, although the law does not support this characterization.

• Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “toast”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

• stato-, stoat, tasto, toats, totas

Borrowed from English toast.

• IPA^(key): /toːst/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: toast
• Rhymes: -oːst
• Homophone: toost

toast m (plural toasts, diminutive toastje n)

1. (chiefly diminutive) Melba toast

• toasten

toast

1. elative singular of tuba

Borrowed from English toast. Doublet of tôt.

• IPA^(key): /tɔst/

• Audio

  (file)

toast m (plural toasts)

1. toast (bread)
2. toast (salutation)

• “toast”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• tosto (rare)

Pseudo-anglicism, from English toast.

• IPA^(key): /ˈtɔst/
• Rhymes: -ɔst

toast m (invariable)

1. toasted sandwich

• toast in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana

• stato, tasto, tastò, tosta

Borrowed from English toast.

toast m (definite singular toasten, indefinite plural toaster, definite plural toastene)

1. toast (toasted bread)

• ristet brød

• “toast” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Borrowed from English toast.

toast m (definite singular toasten, indefinite plural toastar, definite plural toastane)

1. toast (toasted bread)

• rista brød

• “toast” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Borrowed from English toast. Doublet of tost.

• IPA^(key): /ˈtɔ.ast/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔast
• Syllabification: to‧ast

toast m inan (diminutive toaścik)

1. toast (proposed salutation)

• toast in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• toast in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Borrowed from French toast.

toast n (plural toasturi)

1. toast (salutation when drinking alcohol)