A dish traditionally made of beaten eggs fried in a pan, sometimes with the addition of other ingredients to the mixture, served plain or with a sweet or (esp.) savoury filling.Frequently as the second element in compounds, as mushroom omelette, Spanish omelette: see at first word.
1611 R. Cotgrave Dict. French & Eng. Tongues Omelette [v.r. Haumelotte, Homelette], an Omelet, or Pancake of egges.
1655 tr. C. Sorel Comical Hist. Francion ii. 26 I was commanded to make an Aumelet, it being Friday.
1657 R. Ligon True Hist. Barbados 36 An Amulet of eggs.
1681 W. Robertson Phraseologia generalis (1693) 185 An Aumulet of Eggs.
1698 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 20 70 A Fresh Egg in Fashion of an Ammulet.
1699 J. Evelyn Acetaria 18 In Omlets, made up with Cream, fried in sweet Butter.
1733 S. Harrison House-keeper's Pocket-bk. ii. 9 Eggs dress'd, in several sorts of Amlets.
1749 T. Smollett tr. A. R. Le Sage Gil Blas I. i. ii. 8 When the amlet I had bespoke was ready, I sat down to table.
1750 E. Smith Compl. Housewife (ed. 14) 50 An Amulet of Eggs the savoury way.
1775 J. Ash New Dict. Eng. Lang. Amelet, a kind of pancake.
1785 W. Withering Acct. Foxglove p. xiv Some persons, soon after eating of a kind of omalade, into which the leaves of this [sc. the foxglove].., had entered as an ingredient, found themselves much indisposed.
1804 ‘Ignotus’ Culina 166 The omelette is an extemporaneous dish that admits of great variation in its composition.
1860 N. Hawthorne Marble Faun I. xxv. 273 Old Stella..quickly followed it with a savory omelet.
1909 Daily Chron. 2 Feb. 4/7 The recipe for an eggless omelette.
1960 Farmer & Stockbreeder 29 Mar. (Suppl.) 8/21 For the next omelette..you really need the mild sweetness of the true Gruyère.
1989 N. Sherry Life Graham Greene I. xxxv. 539 Their cook, Souri, made them an enormous omelette.