Dictionary

muffineer en · NOUN

Etymology

From muffin + -eer.

Meanings

1. A small jar or caster with a perforated top for sprinkling salt or sugar on muffins.
   • He was sitting at his table by the light of a solitary candle, with a pen in one hand, and a muffineer in the other, with which he occasionally sprinkled salt on the wick, to make it burn blue. 1818, Thomas Love Peacock, Nightmare Abbey, section VIII:
   • The piece was an eighteenth-century silver muffineer, or sugar shaker. 2009, Briann G. Greenfield, Out of the Attic: Inventing Antiques in Twentieth-century New England:
   • The handled spice dredger was superseded during the 1760s by the handleless caster used for cinnamon and known to collectors as the muffineer, a name brought into use for such a caster early in the nineteenth century. 1957, George Bernard Hughes, Small antique silverware:
2. (obsolete) A dish for keeping muffins hot.

Forms