carryout
Pluralcarryouts
- 1Food bought to be eaten away from the place that sold it.
We grabbed carryout from the Thai place and ate it at my desk.
Friday night meant a carryout from the chippy, eaten straight from the paper.
Note
The word is regional, heard in the American Midland and in Scotland, and it is built from the phrasal verb carry out: the food is named for what you do with it. It works as a mass noun (we had carryout) and as a count noun for a single order (two carryouts on the way home).
- 2A shop or restaurant that prepares food when customers order it and sells it to be taken away.
The new carryout by the station does the best curry in town.
She worked weekends at a barbecue carryout off the interstate.
Note
The regions that eat carryout buy it from a carryout: one word serves for the food and the shop, just as takeaway does. The kind of food can go in front, as in a barbecue carryout or a fish carryout, and the shops are counted like any others, as in the carryouts along the main road.
Practice
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Origin
A noun formed from the verb phrase carry out.