The “sweet snack consisting of two small, very thin, circular waffles sandwiched together with a syrup or caramel filling” – better known as the stroopwafel  – has become popular enough to be included in the Oxford English Dictionary.

The earliest mention of the stroopwafel in English dates from 1974, the dictionary says, in an advertisement in the Ohio Beacon Journal, touting “Original Dutch Stroopwafels. “Just arrived from Holland, these syrup waffles go particularly well with good coffees or teas,” the advert says.

American English speakers pronounce the sticky delicacy as STROHP-wah-fuhl, which is nearest the way the Dutch say it, while the Brits call it a STROOP-woff-uh, much in the way they mispronounce the name of Dutch prime minister Dick Schoof.

The dictionary also tallied the frequency of the word in modern written English which came to about 0.02 occurrences per million words.

Stroopwafel is the latest in a long list of Dutch words that have been introduced into the (American) English language. Recent examples include “the Cruyff turn” and “total football” but the Dutch influence goes back much further than that.

“Stoep” (pavement, sidewalk) became “stoop” when Dutch immigrants came to America with the first mention in 1755, for example, and “cookie” derives from the Dutch koekje. Which brings us back to the stroopwafel, which also falls in the koekje category.

Although Dutch, and every other language, has liberally appropriated words from other languages the Dutch government is now trying to stem the flow.

University courses in English have been slashed among fears that Dutch students’ and lecturer’s poor English will make their ability to speak and think in their native language worse as well.