Carbohydrate

//kɑːbəʊˈhaɪdɹeɪt// noun, slang

noun, slang ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A sugar, starch, or cellulose that is a food source of energy for an animal or plant.

    "These microbes are primarily responsible for breaking down cellulose and other carbohydrates into volatile fatty acids (VFAs)."

  2. 2
    an essential structural component of living cells and source of energy for animals; includes simple sugars with small molecules as well as macromolecular substances; are classified according to the number of monosaccharide groups they contain wordnet
  3. 3
    Any food rich in starch or other carbohydrates. broadly, colloquial, metonymically

    "I'm cutting down on carbohydrates like bread and pasta."

Synonyms

All synonyms
saccharidecarbalcoholbarley sugarbeet sugarcellulose

Example

More examples

"Some people say a high fat–low carbohydrate diet is healthy."

Etymology

From their general formula Cₙ(H₂O)ₙ; they were once thought to be hydrates of carbon.

Related phrases

amino carbohydratecarbo-loadcarbohydrate loadingcomplex carbohydratesimple carbohydratewhite carbohydratediet foegetting fatin breadstarchy foods

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.