menu

Pluralmenus

Formsmenus, menuing, menued

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A list of the food and beverages offered at a restaurant, café, or bar, printed on paper, shown on a board, or displayed digitally.

   The café printed a fresh menu featuring its seasonal dishes.

   Diners can scan a code at the table to view the menu on their phones.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A list from which a user selects an operation to perform, typically using a keyboard, mouse, or controller within a graphical interface.

   Open the settings menu to adjust the display resolution.

   She navigated the on-screen menu using only the game controller.

   Note

   The restaurant picture carries over to the screen: you pick from a list instead of recalling a command and typing its exact syntax. Menu bars, dropdowns and context menus are its common shapes on a computer. Games present the same idea as on-screen lists you move through with a controller. In both settings you open a menu, navigate it, and select from it.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   The range of food or drinks available at a restaurant, café, or bar.

   The new chef completely reworked the menu to highlight local produce.

   Their menu leans heavily on grilled seafood and fresh salads.

   Similarofferings

   Note

   Here the menu is the food itself, not the card it is written on. A kitchen takes a chicken sandwich off its menu or adds new dishes to it, and what changes is what is served. Reprinting the printed list simply follows from that change. Phrases like on the menu and off the menu usually belong to this sense.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   The list of dishes to be served at a banquet, also known as a bill of fare.

   The banquet menu featured seven courses paired with regional wines.

   The host reviewed the menu with the caterer a week before the gala.

   Note

   Here the menu is set before the guests arrive: one planned sequence of dishes for the whole table, not a range to choose from. The word comes straight from French menu, and English holds the same word twice more by other routes, since minute and menudo are its doublets. Bill of fare is the older English name for the same thing.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   A list of available options or items set out on an agenda.

   The conference presented a rich menu of talks and hands-on workshops.

   Therapists can draw from a broad menu of treatment options for each patient.

   Similarrange, selection, array, choice

   Note

   The restaurant's sense of choice, carried into meetings, conferences and treatment plans. In the question what's on the menu for today's meeting, it means simply what is planned. In phrases like a rich menu of talks or a broad menu of options, it keeps the sense that the reader or listener gets to pick.

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