biscuit Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun small round bread leavened with baking-powder or soda
  2. noun any of various small flat sweet cakes (`biscuit' is the British term)
    cooky; cookie.

WordNet

Bis"cuit noun
Etymology
F. biscuit (cf. It. biscotto, Sp. bizcocho, Pg. biscouto), fr. L. bis twice + coctus, p. p. of coquere to cook, bake. See Cook, and cf. Bisque a kind of porcelain.
Definitions
  1. A kind of unraised bread, of many varieties, plain, sweet, or fancy, formed into flat cakes, and bakes hard; as, ship biscuit.
    According to military practice, the bread or biscuit of the Romans was twice prepared in the oven. Gibbon.
  2. A small loaf or cake of bread, raised and shortened, or made light with soda or baking powder. Usually a number are baked in the same pan, forming a sheet or card.
  3. Earthen ware or porcelain which has undergone the first baking, before it is subjected to the glazing.
  4. (Sculp.) A species of white, unglazed porcelain, in which vases, figures, and groups are formed in miniature.

Webster 1913