dish

DISH/dɪʃ/

17 meanings of dish

1
nounmetonymicallycountable or uncountable
A particular type of prepared food, made according to a recipe and served at a meal.
Each region of Italy has its own signature dish.
The chef prepared several dishes for the tasting menu.
Similarcourse, recipe, specialty, plate
Note
The vessel stands in for what it holds, a metonymy that made the word mean a recipe cooked and served: a vegetable dish, a dish that is filling and easily made. Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (1599) supplies the phrase still quoted for food of the finest kind, "a dish fit for the gods". There, though, the carving is of a man, not a meal.
2
nouncountable or uncountable
A flat or shallow vessel for holding or serving food, usually with a lowered area in the center.
He carried the steaming dish to the table.
The cupboard was full of mismatched dishes.
Similarplate
Note
The oldest sense, and the root of all the rest: Old English disċ, through a West Germanic *disk meaning both "table" and "dish", from Latin discus. The same Germanic word passed into Slavic as the word for a board, giving Polish deska and Russian doska. The King James Bible of 1611 already brings forth butter "in a lordly dish". Plate is its nearest synonym.
3
nouncountable or uncountable
The amount of food contained in a plate or bowl.
The hungry travelers emptied every dish on the table.
He polished off two heaping dishes of stew.
Similarplateful, dishful
4
nouncountable or uncountableplural
The plates, utensils, and other tableware used during a meal and waiting to be washed.
Every night after supper the dishes piled up in the sink.
She loaded the dish rack with the evening's dirty dishes.
Similarcrockery, tableware
Note
The plural takes in the whole aftermath of a meal. Plates and bowls count among the dishes, and so do cutlery and the pans the food was cooked in. Used this way, the word nearly always takes the plural and the definite article, as in wash the dishes. A single dirty fork is never called "a dish".
5
verbtransitive
To place food into a dish or onto a plate in order to serve it.
Waiters dish the main course once everyone is seated.
She dished the casserole onto each plate carefully.
Similarserve, plate, spoon, ladle
6
verbslangtransitive or intransitive
To gossip, passing on details about someone else's personal life.
Old friends always dish about each other's love lives.
She dished every detail of the breakup over coffee.
Similargossip, spill, blab, tattle
Note
Passing gossip along, as a verb, follows two patterns. With about it names the person discussed: dish about a friend's love life. With a direct object it names the details themselves: dish every detail of the breakup. It is slang, warm and conspiratorial, suited to friends over coffee rather than a report.
7
nounslanguncountable
Juicy talk or rumors about someone's personal affairs.
Everyone wanted the dish on the surprise engagement.
He came back from lunch with all the dish.
Similargossip, scoop, lowdown, dirt, scuttlebutt
Note
Slang for gossip, used only as a mass noun: the dish or all the dish, never a dish. Writing in 1989, Abe Rybeck plays on the food sense with "our deep dish", talk served up to be consumed. The word suits easy, conspiratorial conversation. In neutral writing, gossip or rumor is the safer choice.
8
nouncountable or uncountable
A bowl-shaped antenna, curved like a plate, used to transmit or receive radio or satellite signals.
Technicians aligned the dish toward the satellite.
Large dishes at the observatory track distant galaxies.
Similarantenna, aerial, reflector
Note
Telecommunications borrowed the kitchen shape. A satellite dish or radar dish is a parabolic reflector: its concave face gathers incoming radio waves onto a feed at its focal point, or narrows outgoing signals into a tight beam. The bare noun is understood from context. In technical writing, the qualifier (satellite or radar) says what the dish is for.
9
nounslangcountable or uncountable
A strikingly attractive, sexually appealing person.
Back then, the leading man was considered a real dish.
Her new boyfriend is an absolute dish.
Similarbabe, fox
Note
Slang that praises looks by likening a person to something served up: quite a dish, what a dish! It works mostly as an exclamation or after quite, real or absolute, and it sits alongside babe and fox. Keep it for playful talk with people who will take it that way. Said to a stranger or a colleague, it reduces someone to an object of appetite.
10
nounslangcountable or uncountable
In baseball, home plate: the marker a batter stands beside and a runner must touch to score.
The catcher blocked the dish to keep the tying run from scoring.
A clean slide into the dish won the game in the ninth.
Similarplate
Note
Baseball slang built from the kitchen. Home plate is already a plate, so players simply swapped in another piece of crockery. The five-sided rubber slab keeps its official name in the rulebook, while dish belongs to players and broadcasters. It usually follows at or near, as in "your chances at the dish" or "the ball stays near the dish".

11
verbslangtransitive
To insult someone or something, or speak badly of them.
Coworkers will dish the boss the moment he leaves the room.
Two of the judges openly dished his song choice, calling it lazy and dated.
Similartrash, slam, bash, knock, pan
Oppositepraise, compliment
Note
Running someone down, rather than passing news along. The slang verb takes a direct object, and that object can be a person or something of theirs, such as their taste or their work. Writing in 1989, Jewelle Gomez lists "dishing someone's bad taste" among the pleasures of talk with a friend. It sits close to the gossiping meaning, but here the point is the insult.
12
nouncountable or uncountable
A shallow hollow or depression in the ground, such as a low spot in a field.
A shallow dish in the meadow stayed muddy long after the rains passed.
Hikers rested in a sheltered dish below the ridge.
Similarhollow, depression, dip, basin, bowl
Oppositemound, rise
Note
A landscape word, at home in hunting, hiking and military description. A grouse flushes from a grassy dish, and a supposed summit turns out to sit at the edge of a shallow, stony dish. It nearly always carries an adjective for size or surface, such as small, shallow, grassy or stony. The hollow it suggests is broad and gently rounded, like the vessel.
13
verbtransitive
To make something concave by pressing or shaping its middle inward, like a bowl.
Heat slowly dished the copper plate until its center sank.
Smiths dish the steel by hammering it over a curved form.
Similarhollow, cup, indent, depress
14
noundatedcountable or uncountable
The condition of being concave, or the amount of inward curve a surface has, like a bowl.
The builder measured the dish of the wheel to make sure it ran true.
A slight dish in the shield helped deflect blows.
Similarconcavity, curvature, hollow
Oppositeconvexity, bulge
Note
A wheelwright's measure more than a cook's. The dish of a wheel is how far its center sits in from the rim, produced by setting the spokes at an angle, which is the work the verb "to make concave" names. In general use the noun now sounds dated. Outside traditional crafts, concavity or curvature carries the meaning.
15
verbarchaictransitive
To frustrate, beat, or outwit someone; to defeat their plans.
A late goal dished the home side's hopes of promotion.
A single leak can dish even the best-laid scheme.
Note
An archaic slang verb for wrecking someone's chances. It takes a direct object, either a person or that person's hopes and schemes. A modern reader may easily mistake it for the insulting sense. In current writing, beat, thwart or outwit says the same thing without the risk of confusion.
16
nounarchaiccountable or uncountable
In mining, a trough used to measure quantities of ore.
The overseer measured every dish of ore against the official standard.
Loads were counted by the dish before the wagons were filled.
Note
An archaic term from the mining trade, notably in the lead-mining districts of Derbyshire. There the dish was both the trough and the fixed, legally defined volume of ore it held. Because ore was reckoned by the dish, the word named a quantity as much as a container. Today it turns up only in historical writing about mines.
17
nounarchaiccountable or uncountable
In mining, the portion of a mine's output paid to the landowner or proprietor.
Each mine paid its dish to the proprietor before keeping any profit.
The lord's dish came out of the ore before the miners took their portion.
Note
A mining due named after its measuring vessel. The landowner's share was counted out in the ore-measuring trough, and the trough's name passed to the payment itself. Like that sense, it is archaic and met mainly in histories of mining custom. In modern terms, the nearest equivalent is a royalty on mineral rights.

Practice

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Origin

The word comes from Middle English 'dissh' and Old English 'disc' (plate, bowl, dish), which goes back through Proto-West Germanic to Latin 'discus'. It is a doublet of 'dais', 'desk', 'disc', 'discus', and 'disk', and is related to German 'Tisch' (table) and Dutch 'dis' (table).