Pancakes; also used in the phrase 'selling like hotcakes,' meaning something is selling very quickly and in large quantities.
Compound word from 'hot' and 'cakes,' appearing in American English by the 18th century. The phrase 'selling like hotcakes' became popular in the 19th century because hotcakes were inexpensive, quick to make, and easy to sell at markets and street fairs.
The phrase 'selling like hotcakes' comes from actual commerce—hotcakes were the perfect street food, cheap and quick, so vendors sold them by the dozen before they got cold. That real-world speed became our metaphor for rapid sales, making modern idiom rooted in 19th-century food economics.
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