noun, masculine/ɡa.to/plural: gâteaux
a sponge cake, i.e. a cake made with a chemical leavening agent (e.g. baking powder), making it light and airy (as opposed to a denser torte); a cookie
Inherited from Middle French gasteau, from Old French gastel, from Frankish *wastil, from Proto-Germanic *wastilaz, from Proto-Indo-European *wes- (“to eat; consume”). Compare Old English wist (“food; provision; feast”) and obsolete English wastel, Sicilian guasteḍḍa (“a kind of round bread”).