BAKING

baking, the action of the verb "to bake," a word, in various forms, common to teutonic languages (cf. ger. _backen_), meaning to cook by dry heat. "baking" is thus primarily applied to [v.03 p.0230] the process of preparing bread, and is also applied to the hardening by heat or "firing" of pottery, earthenware or bricks. (see bread; ceramics and brick.) bakis (_i.e._ "speaker," from [greek: bazo]), a general name for the inspired prophets and dispensers of oracles who flourished in greece from the 8th to the 6th century b.c. suidas mentions three: a boeotian, an arcadian and an athenian. the first, who was the most famous, was said to have been inspired by the nymphs of the corycian cave. his oracles, of which specimens are extant in herodotus and pausanias, were written in hexameter verse, and were considered to have been strikingly fulfilled. the arcadian was said to have cured the women of sparta of a fit of madness. many of the oracles which were current under his name have been attributed to onomacritus. herodotus viii. 20, 77, ix. 43; pausanias iv. 27, ix. 17, x. 12; schol. aristoph. _pax_, 1070; see goettling, _opuscula academica_ (1869).