Sourdough
/ˈsaʊərˌdoʊ/noun
Bread made from dough fermented with naturally occurring yeast and bacteria, often using a starter.
Did you know?The word is not ancient or occult in origin, but the process it names is old magic-by-another-name: a starter is a living culture passed from batch to batch, preserving invisible microbial lineages for generations.
Etymological Timeline
Old English
English
sūr
“sour, acidic, tart”
Old English
English
dāg
“dough, a mass of bread mixture”
Middle English
English
sour dough
“dough that has become sour or fermented”
17th–18th Century
English
sourdough
“fermented bread dough; later, a person who uses sourdough starter, especially in frontier slang”
Modern English
English
sourdough
“bread leavened with a fermented starter culture”