noun
calorie
KA-luh-ree
noun
1
A unit of food energy (technically a kilocalorie) used on nutrition labels to measure how much energy a food provides.
"The bar has 250 calories per serving."
"Cutting a few hundred calories a day can lead to steady weight loss."
2
In science, a much smaller unit of heat energy — the amount needed to raise one gram of water by one degree Celsius — mostly replaced by the joule.
"The old chemistry textbook measured reaction energy in calories rather than joules."
How to Use Calorie
Learner’s notesIn plain EnglishA measure of energy — in everyday use, it tells you how much energy a food will give your body.
Common mistake
The "Calorie" on food labels is really a kilocalorie (1,000 scientific calories), which is why food and lab-science calories seem to disagree by a factor of 1,000.
Common pairings
burn calories
count calories
empty calories
Word Forms
calories plural, Calories plural
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The bar has 250 _____ per serving.
Etymology
Borrowed from French calorie, built on Latin calor ("heat").