What does "hoecake" mean?

A type of cornbread or cornmeal cake, made with water and salt. It was originally baked before the fire or in the ashes on a type of iron pan called a hoe; in modern times, it is fried in cooking oil in a skillet.

What is a synonym for "hoecake"?

Common synonyms include: dodger, johnnycake.

Hoecake

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1
A type of cornbread or cornmeal cake, made with water and salt. It was originally baked before the fire or in the ashes on a type of iron pan called a hoe; in modern times, it is fried in cooking oil in a skillet. Southern-US, dated
"In Jean Fritz's children's book George Washington's Breakfast, the protagonist finds out that George Washington may have eaten hoecakes for breakfast."
2
thin usually unleavened johnnycake made of cornmeal; originally baked on the blade of a hoe over an open fire (southern) wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

dodger johnnycake

Example

More examples

"In Jean Fritz's children's book George Washington's Breakfast, the protagonist finds out that George Washington may have eaten hoecakes for breakfast."

Etymology

From hoe + cake, since it was often cooked on a hoe (a type of pan, not the gardening implement).

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