garnish

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

Merriam-Webster

Arts, Literature, Language Courses, Education

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🗓️ 24 October 2024

⏱️ 2 minutes

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Summary

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 24, 2024 is:

garnish • \GAHR-nish\ • verb

To garnish food or drink is to add decorative and tasty touches to it, such as a spiral of lemon peel.

// Aditi likes to garnish her mashed potatoes with chives and a dollop of sour cream.

// Slivers of dark chocolate garnished the cake.

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Examples:

“For the more modern power diner, attuned to the virtuous aesthetics of wellness, there’s a suite of blended juices served in slim-stemmed wine glasses, each garnished with a floating edible flower, and an airy hummus made of whipped sunflower seeds, served with a rainbow of crudités on a bed of ice.” — Helen Rosner, The New Yorker, 21 Apr. 2024

Did you know?

When it comes to meanings, garnish giveth, and garnish taketh away. To garnish something is to decorate it, embellish it, give it that extra bit of culinary or designer flair—say, a sprig of parsley or a string of garland. In decidedly different contexts, however, to garnish something—such as the wages of someone who is in debt—is to take it by legal authority. How did this word come to have such opposite meanings? The answer lies in garnish’s Anglo-French root, garnir, which has various meanings including “to give notice or legal summons” and “to decorate.” Before wages were garnished, the debtor would be served with a legal summons or warning. The legal sense of garnish now focuses on the taking of the wages, but it is rooted in the action of furnishing the warning.

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's the word of the day for October 24th.
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0:42.4	Today's word is Garnish, spelled G-A-R-N-I-S-H, garnish is a verb.
0:48.3	To garnish food or drink is to add decorative and tasty touches to it, such as a spiral of lemon peel.
0:55.0	Here's the word used in a sentence from the New Yorker by Helen Rosner.
0:59.0	For the more modern power diner, attuned to the virtuous aesthetics of wellness, there's a
1:05.1	sweet of blended juices served in slim-stemmed wine glasses each garnished with
1:11.0	a floating edible flower, and an a rainbow of crudite on a bed of ice.
1:20.0	When it comes to meanings, garnish giveth and garnish taketh away.
1:25.0	To garnish something is to decorate it,
1:28.0	embellish it, give it that extra bit of culinary or designer flare,
1:32.0	say a sprig of parsley or a string of garland.
1:35.6	In decidedly different contexts, however, to garnish something such as the wages of someone
1:41.2	who is in debt is to take it by legal authority.
1:45.0	How did this word come to have such opposite meanings?
	...

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