Standard Lemma guide
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.
noun
A small elevator used to move food etc. from one floor of a building to another.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
A table or set of trays on rollers used for serving food.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: obsolete
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
A lazy Susan.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: obsolete
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
a small elevator used to convey food (or other goods) from one floor of a building to another
Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: food elevator
Antonyms: none provided
Broader terms: elevator, lift
History
From dumb (“unable to speak”) + waiter, originally separate words and describing the portable table's inability to relate gossip after the meal. By the use of the term to describe small service elevators in American homes in the 1840s, it simply meant dumb as “mechanical”, “unable to speak at all”.
Across languages
18 source translations are retained for this English entry.
