Meaning of Garnish | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A town in Newfoundland, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.
2. A set of dishes, often pewter, containing a dozen pieces of several types.
   countable, uncountable
3. Pewter vessels in general.
   countable, uncountable
4. Something added for embellishment.
   countable, uncountable
5. Clothes; garments, especially when showy or decorative.
   countable, uncountable
6. Something set round or upon a dish as an embellishment.
   countable, uncountable
7. Fetters.
   countable, obsolete, slang, uncountable
8. A fee; specifically, in English jails, formerly an unauthorized fee demanded from a newcomer by the older prisoners.
   historical, slang, uncountable
9. Cash.
   US, countable, slang, uncountable

Equivalents

Examples

“The accounts of collegiate and monastic institutions give abundant entries of the price of pewter vessels, called also garnish.”

“1718, Matthew Prior, Alma: or, The Progress of the Mind, Canto 1, in Poems on Several Occasions, London: Jacob Tonson, p. 333, First Poets, all the World agrees, Write half to profit, half to please Matter and figure They produce; For Garnish This, and That for Use;”

“This hard-headed old Overreach approved of the sentimental song, as the suitable garnish for girls, and also as fundamentally fine, sentiment being the right thing for a song.”

“There had been a semblance of chivalry in the attitude from which, at the beginning of their marriage, he had briefly regarded her; but forty-seven years had efficiently disposed of that garnish of politeness.”

“So are you, sweet, Even in the lovely garnish of a boy.”

“1699, B. E., A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew, London: W. Hawes et al., Garnish money, what is customarily spent among the Prisoners at first coming in.”

“This person then […] acquainted him that it was the custom of the place for every prisoner, upon his first arrival there, to give something to the former prisoners to make them drink. This, he said, was what they called garnish; and concluded with advising his new customer to draw his purse upon the present occasion.”

CEFR level