Phrase guide
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
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noun
A fluffy pie made from molasses with a crumb cake top, traditional among the Pennsylvania Dutch.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: countable, uncountable
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: shoofly cake
Antonyms: none provided
noun
open pie filled with a mixture of sweet crumbs and molasses
Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
Broader terms: pie
History
From shoo + fly + pie. Named after the Shoofly molasses company, which was named after "Shoofly the Boxing Mule" (a circus attraction of the period), which was named after a Civil-War-era folk song called "Shoo Fly, Don't Bother Me". Not related to the idea of shooing flies away from the sweet filling.
Across languages
1 source translations are retained for this English entry.
