Learn English – How did “biscuit” come to have a distinct meaning in North American English

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The Oxford Living Dictionary makes a clear distinction between the usage of biscuit in Britain and North America:

British: A small baked unleavened cake, typically crisp, flat, and sweet.
‘a chocolate biscuit’

North American: A small, soft round cake like a scone.

When I hear biscuit being used in a British context, it usually refers to a confection (what Americans call cookies). In a U.S. context, it never refers to a confection. [See also: Biscuits & Gravy]

Why did this distinction come into being?

Best Answer

A look at early (pre-1800) English dictionaries points to a possible source of confusion early in the career of biscuit. Two dictionaries—Edward Phillips & John Kersey, The New World of Words: Or, Universal English Dictionary (1706) and John Kersey, Dictionarium Anglo-Britannicum: or, a General English Dictionary (1708)—have identical definitions for biscotin:

Biscotin, (F.) a sort of Confection made of fine Flower, the Whites of Eggs, Powder-Sugar, &c.

But John Kersey, A New English Dictionary; or, A Compleat Collection of the Most Proper and Significant Words, and Terms of Art commonly used in the English Language (1713) has this very different definition for bisket:

A Bisket, a sort of Bread.

At least superficially, the definition of biscotin might describe a type of modern English biscuit, while the definition of bisket might serve as a rough description of a modern American biscuit.

Thomas Dyche & William Pardon, A New General English Dictionary, third edition (1749) is the earliest dictionary I've been able to find that lists the spelling biscuit:

BISKET, BISCUIT, or BISQUET (S.) commonly understood of small cakes made by the confectioners, of fine flower, eggs, sugar, &c. also the bread carried to sea, is called sea biscuit.

This same definition appears in editions of Dyche & Pardon as late as the eighteenth edition (1781).

Next to weigh in is Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary Of The English Language (1755), with entries for biscotin and biscuit:

BISCOTIN, n. s. {French} A confection made of flour, sugar, marmalade, eggs, &c.

BISCUIT, n. s. {from bis, twice, Lat. and cuit, baked, Fr.} 1. A kind of hard dry bread, made to be carried to sea; it is baked for long voyages four times. [Cited examples:] The biscuit also in the ships, especially in the Spanish gallies, was grown hoary, and unwholesome. Knolles's History of the Turks. Many have been cured by abstinence from drink, eating dry biscuit, which creates no thirst, and strong frictions four or five times a day. Arbuthnot on Diet. 2. A composition of fine flour, almonds, and sugar, made by the confectioners.

From Johnson's remark that sea biscuits are baked for long voyages four times, we might conclude that a more suitable name for these items would be quadriscuits or tetriscuits. Richard Knolles, The Generall Historie of the Turkes (1603) does indeed contain the passage that Johnson quotes, but he spells the word bisket:

for all the water thereabout was most vnpleasant and exceeding brackish, so that both sicke and whole were glad when they could get a crab to quench the extremitie of their thirst : although the emperour did what he might to remedie these extremities, and much releese was in good time sent both from SICILIA and NAPLES : the bisket also in the ships, especially in the Spanish gallies, was growne hoarie and vnwholesome.

In fact, Knolles uses bisket five times in the course of his Historie—including this instance:

there was such a dearth in the Turks armie, that they were enforced to giue their camels bisket and rice, and when that failed, they gaue them their pack-saddles to eat, and after that pieces of wood beaten into pouder, and at the last the very earth : which dearth endured vntill they arriued at VAN.

It seems clear from this instance that Knolles used the term bisket for what much later in the United States came to be called hardtack. In pioneer days, land travelers as well as sea travelers commonly carried hardtack with them on long trips. Here is the entry for hardtack in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, fifth edition (2010):

hardtack n. A hard biscuit or bead made with only flour and water. Also called sea biscuit, sea bread, ship biscuit.

Next, chronologically, in my dictionary survey comes Nathan Bailey, The New Universal English Dictionary, fifth edition (1760), which covers biscotin and bisket/bisquet:

BISCOTIN (Confect.) a confection made of fine flower, powder'd sugar, marmalade, the white of eggs, &c.

...

BISKET, BISQUET (with Confectioners) a composition of fine flower, eggs, sugar, &c.

The seventh edition of Bailey's New Universal English Dictionary (1776) further complicates the picture by adding a separate entry for bisquet:

BISCOTIN (Confect.) a confection made of fine flower, powder'd sugar, marmalade, the white of eggs, &c.

...

BISQUET (probably of bis, twice, and coctus, baked) a sort of hard baked-brad or cake.

BISQUET, BISKET (with Confectioners) a composition of fine flower, eggs, sugar, &c.

Conclusion

The history of bisket, biscotin, biscuit, and bisquet is quite convoluted. At various times before 1800, dictionaries have used all of these words to identify a confection made with flour, eggs, sand sugar (among other ingredients). But at other times before 1800, dictionaries have applied the words bisket, biscuit*, and bisquet to tiny rounds of hard-baked bread.

Under the circumstances—especially in view of the equivocal treatment of the word in Samuel Johnson's tremendously influential 1755 dictionary, it is hardly surprising that British English went one way with the word biscuit and North American English went the other.

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