Crust

How to spell crust

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce crust

What does crust mean?

1. nounThe hard outer layer of something, especially baked bread or pastry.
2. nounThe solid outer rocky layer of the Earth.

Crust in a sentence

• The warm bread had a thick, golden crust.

• The Earth's crust is much thinner beneath the oceans.

• She trimmed the crust off the sandwiches before the party.

• Earthquakes happen when sections of the crust shift suddenly.

Where does crust come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin crusta, which meant a hard surface, a rind, or a shell, the kind of stiff coating that forms over something soft. English took it in during the 1300s through Old French crouste, keeping the sense of the hard outer layer of bread. From baking it spread naturally to other hard outer skins: the crust of a pie, the crust of a wound, and from the 1500s onward the rocky outer crust of the Earth. The same Latin crusta also gave us 'crustacean', the name for shellfish whose bodies are protected by a hard shell, and 'encrust', to cover something with a hard coating. Because the word kept its tidy Latin spelling on the journey, it stayed short and regular, which is why it almost never trips up adult writers.

How the word is built

• crust (whole root, from Latin crusta: hard outer surface, rind, shell); no prefix or suffix