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# cornflour

«cornflour» in Mova's school dictionary: **a fine white powder made from maize (corn), used in…** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

### part of speech

noun (cornflour — uncountable) — UK, Ireland, Australia, NZ; US and Canada say «cornstarch»

### meaning for a pupil

1) Cornflour is a fine white powder made from maize (corn), used in cooking to make sauces, soups and gravy thicker. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/cornflour/#m1)

2) In the US, «corn flour» can also mean flour ground from whole corn, which is different. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/cornflour/#m2)

### sense in the lessons

In cooking at home and school, a spoon of cornflour mixed with cold water thickens a sauce. In science lessons, cornflour mixed with water makes «oobleck», a strange slime that is hard when you hit it and runny when you pour it — a non-Newtonian fluid. Recipes from the US will say «cornstarch».

### examples

- Mix the cornflour with cold water before adding it to the gravy. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/cornflour/#x1)
- Cornflour makes the sauce thick and shiny. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/cornflour/#x2)
- We made slime with cornflour and water. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/cornflour/#x3)
- The oobleck went hard when I punched it. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/cornflour/#x4)
- US recipes call cornflour «cornstarch». [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/cornflour/#x5)
- Cornflour is gluten-free. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/cornflour/#x6)
- Dust the table with cornflour so the icing does not stick. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/cornflour/#x7)

### note

Uncountable: «a tablespoon of cornflour». Trap: UK «cornflour» = US «cornstarch»; US «cornmeal» is something else (yellow and gritty). Always mix it with cold water first, or it goes lumpy.

### In the corpora

- [Some things are tricky: toothpaste, ketchup and cornflour slime behave like a solid one moment and a liquid the next.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/4-solids-liquids-and-gases/4/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «cornflour» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/cornflour/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.