2 entries under this word
v. t. [imp. & p. p. TOASTED; p. pr. & vb. n. TOASTING.] [O. Fr. toster, rôtir, Sp. & Pg. tostar, to roast, toast, from Lat. torrere, tostum, to parch, roast.]
n. [O. Fr. toste, tostée, toasted bread. See supra.]
Sense 1. Bread dried and scorched by the fire; also, a kind of food prepared by putting scorched bread into milk or melted butter; formerly, bread scorched and put into liquor.
Make it so large that, filled with sack Up to the swelling brim, Vast toasts on the delicious lake Like ships at sea may swim. Rochester.
My sober evening let the tankard bless, With toast embrowned, and fragrant nutmeg fraught. Warton.
Sense 2. A lady in honor of whom persons or a company are invited to drink;—so called from the toasts formerly put into liquor, which were considered a great delicacy.
It now came to the turn of Mr. Jones to give a toast, as it is called, who could not refrain from mentioning his dear Sophia. Fielding.
Sense 3. Hence, the name of any person, especially a person of distinction, in honor of whom health is drunk; hence, also, any thing considered worthy to be commemorated in a similar way; a sentiment; as, the land we live in, the day we celebrate, &c.
The wise man's passion, and the vain man's toast. Pope.