Etymology

doughnut

dough·nut
D2O1U1G2H4N1U1T1

Today it means: A deep-fried piece of dough or batter, usually mixed with various sweeteners and flavors, often made in a toroidal or ellipsoidal shape flattened sphere shape filled with jelly/jam, custard, or cream. Full definition →

English nut ← Middle English note ← Old English hnutu
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*dʰeyǵʰ-
  2. Proto-Indo-European*dʰóyǵʰos
  3. Proto-Germanic*daigaz
  4. Proto-West Germanic*daig
  5. Old Englishdāg
  6. Middle Englishdogh
  7. Englishdough
  8. Proto-Germanic*hnuts
  9. Proto-West Germanic*hnut
  10. Old Englishhnutu
  11. Middle Englishnote
  12. Englishnut
  13. English todaydoughnut

From dough + nut, 1809 because originally small, nut-sized balls of fried dough, or, more likely, from nut in the earlier sense of "small rounded cake or cookie", with the toroidal shape becoming common in the twentieth century. First attested in Knickerbocker’s History of New York, by Washington Irving, 1809.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.