Dishes

How to spell dishes

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce dishes

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does dishes mean?

1. nounPlates, bowls and similar containers used at the table, or the items of food served in them.
2. verbServes out food or, informally, hands out something freely (third-person singular of 'dish').

Dishes in a sentence

• noun

  He stacked the dirty dishes beside the sink after dinner.

• verb

  The canteen worker dishes out hot meals to the queue every noon.

• noun

  The restaurant offers several vegetarian dishes on its lunch menu.

• verb

  That columnist dishes out criticism to everyone in the office.

Where does dishes come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The base word 'dish' descends from the Old English 'disc', meaning a plate or bowl, which the Anglo-Saxons had borrowed from the Latin 'discus', a flat disc or quoit. The Latin word in turn came from the Greek 'diskos', a round plate or platter thrown in athletic contests. Remarkably, the very same Latin 'discus' fanned out into several modern English words: 'disc' kept the round-object sense, 'desk' arose from the flat working surface, and 'dais' from the raised platform, while 'dish' settled on the tableware meaning. The plural and verb form simply adds '-es', the ending English uses after the 'sh' sound, which is why 'dishes' gains a syllable. The word also broadened to mean a prepared item of food served on a plate, the sense behind 'a tasty dish'.

How the word is built

• dish (plate, from Latin discus)
• -es (plural noun / third-person singular verb ending after sh)