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Cake

Food And Drink
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A sweet baked food associated with feasts and ceremonies. It can signify pleasure, reward, indulgence, or fleeting celebration.

Detailed Definition
Cake enters poems through birthdays, weddings, festivals, and childhood scenes, where its decoration may suggest abundance and wishful display. Its sweetness can be innocent, but it also lends itself to irony when celebration masks sorrow or inequality. A crumbling cake may image the passing of youth, while a shared slice can represent hospitality. In nursery-like verse, cake frequently creates rhythm through its familiar, playful associations.
Example
Example in poetry:
In “The Song of the Open Road,” Walt Whitman celebrates shared food and companionship, a context in which cake can suggest informal abundance; Cake commonly appears in poems of birthdays, weddings, and other rituals of celebration; A poet might write, “The wedding cake rose white as a small winter mountain,” using simile to make the celebration visually memorable; In a darker poem, an untouched cake after a cancelled party can symbolize disappointment or grief
Additional Notes
Cake can suggest birthday or wedding ritual, but its sweetness may also emphasize temporary pleasure or indulgence.
Also Known As
Gâteau
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