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lard

/lɑɹd/noun, verb

lard is a noun meaning “Fat from the abdomen of a pig, especially as prepared for use in cooking or pharmacy” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled L-A-R-D and has one syllable, and it appears about once in every 1 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of lard is lards.

What does lard mean?

noun

  1. 1

    Fat from the abdomen of a pig, especially as prepared for use in cooking or pharmacy.

  2. 2

    obsoleteFatty meat from a pig; bacon, pork.

  3. 3

    slangExcess fat on a person or animal.

verb

  1. 1

    To stuff (meat) with bacon or pork before cooking.

  2. 2

    To smear with fat or lard.

  3. 3

    To distribute, garnish or strew, especially with reference to fatty or greasy things or words or phrases in speech and writing.

  4. 4

    To fatten; to enrich.

  5. 5

    To mix or garnish with something, as by way of improvement; to interlard.

  6. 6

    To embellish with unnecessary frills; to pad.

  7. 7

    obsoleteTo grow fat.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce lard?

  • UK /lɑːd/
  • US /lɑɹd/
  • Australia /lɐːd/

Lard has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-lard.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of lard

  • lards plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • larding participle, present
  • larded participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is lard?

Lard appears about once in every 1 million words in written English, the 29,649th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Lard in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchsaindoux (fat from the abdomen of a pig)
GermanSchmalz (fat from the abdomen of a pig)
Portuguesebanha (fat from the abdomen of a pig)
Spanishmanteca porcina, manteca porcuna, lardo (fat from the abdomen of a pig), mechar (stuff with bacon or pork)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does lard come from?

From Middle English lard, from Old French lard (“bacon”), from Latin lārdum, lāridum (“bacon fat”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).