Gastronomically, a
dumpling is a little ball of
poached dough accompanying a
meat dish;
etymologically, a dumpling is a
little dump, just as a
duckling is a
little duck.The
dump in
dumpling is not related to the
dump in
down in the dumps (that
dump probably comes from the
Dutch domp , meaning
haze ); neither is the
dump in
dumpling related to the
dump in
garbage dump (that
dump probably comes from the
Danish dumpe, meaning
to fall, as in
"He took a bad dump and scraped his knee."); neither is the
dump in
dumpling related to the
dump in
dumpoke (the name of this East Indian dish of steamed chicken comes from the
Persian dam, meaning
breath, and
pukhte, meaning
cooked, as if the meat were
"breath-cooked" by the
steam.)
The dump in dumplings does not really seem to be related to any other dump, deriving all by itself at the beginning of the seventeenth century from the German dump that means damp or moist.
- From "Cupboard Love: A Dictionary of Culinary Curiosities."