means A soft, sweet (or sometimes savoury) dish that ranges from a creamy spoonable dessert to, in British usage, dessert in general.

from From Middle English 'poding,' likely via Old French 'boudin,' meaning a sausage — those early puddings were stuffed and boiled in casings, not sweet at all. The word may trace back to a Latin root 'botellus' (little sausage), a distant relative of 'botulism' of all things. Only over centuries did 'pudding' drift from gut-filled savoury fare toward the soft, sweet wobble we picture today — and in Britain it broadened again to mean the whole final course.