Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A small elevator used to convey food or other goods from one floor of a building to another.
- n. A portable serving stand or table.
Wiktionary
Examples
“The food ordered from behind the counter comes up from the kitchen below on a dumbwaiter, which is very exciting for anyone who grew up watching Webster (but wasn‘t rich enough to have an actualdumbwaiter themselves).”
“Casey: In that kitchen, some of the equipment worked, some of it didn't and we had to use the dumbwaiter.”
“- Open dumbwaiter and put the fire extinguisher in”
“As Mr. Tarrant told me in a 2007 interview, he heard, through a dumbwaiter door to the galley, Callaghan speaking in low, grave tones about the battle plan he would use that night off Guadalcanal.”
“But both, to gauge by the squalid setting, by the way they spring to attention at the sounding of a disembodied voice that issues from the dumbwaiter, are low men on the totem pole.”
“Here, in one corner, a perforated aluminum screen, wooden closet doors, metal grate, dumbwaiter and wood-block floor all converge.”
“The bakery, still run by family members, hasn't changed much in 100 years, with its dumbwaiter to deliver the knishes from the cellar.”
“It started out clumsy and uncomfortable, like trying to swing dance in a dumbwaiter.”
“Full basement*, first floor with 30' ceilings**, mezannine with marble floor tile and a piano in it, attic with slanty-roofed bedrooms, dumbwaiter, laundry chute ... great house to be chased around by dinosaurs trying to kill you!”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘dumbwaiter’.
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Additional 250 Spelling Words
Words for the diehard intermediate and advanced spellers
facetiae, sagittary, anthophilous, hydromancy, pandect, carillonneur, tabbouleh, litterateur, windgall, pinguid, tressure, moderne and 238 more...
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Wordnik Spam Inquiries
We get a lot of spam emails at Wordnik that fit this pattern: "Mr Bob Wilson here and i will like to know if you do have X for sale". The words on this list represent a subset of such requested items.
burnisher, shaper vise, salt spreader, soil pulveriser, bible, flutes, baffles, crucifix cross, proofer, gazebo, real bubble wrap, roller tray and 206 more...
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It's so hard to find good help these ...
lazy susan, dumb waiter, silent butler, slave drive, meter maid, back seat driver, slave driver, hackney driver, robocall, synced sycophant, digital livery, glossy gossoon and 22 more...
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Keeping Secrets
Words of 10 letters, all different, can be used for encrypting, pretty securely, such things as PINs and passwords. The fly in the ointment, for me, in keeping track of them is I've got to write '...
lumberjack, birthplace, whiskeybar, vanquished, metaphysic, precaution, quizmaster, dumbwaiter, thumbscrew, blacksmith, wholegrain, wanderlust and 105 more...
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slumry's Words
cattywampus, ingratiate, lackadaisical, exactitude, exfoliate, fulminate, circumnavigation, circuitous, debride, sidle, sequester, chicory and 1002 more...
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Airborn
Words and phrases from Kenneth Oppel's book, Airborn.
running lights, starboard, bow, gondola, bullhorn, rudder man, gas cell, keel, catwalk, stern, cargo bay, machinist and 152 more...
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I Like the Sound of That
Cool words
apoplexy, theriomorphic, therianthropic, folksonomy, hoochie coochie, noxzema, steeplechase, dumbwaiter, faute de mieux, cathode, okeydokey, protocarnivorous and 90 more...
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Ghosts
soda jerk, rotary, automat, dumbwaiter, bellhop, space race, phosphate soda, elevator operator, pony express, telegram, penny candy, gramophone and 15 more...
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household
balustrade, porch swing, terrace, windowseat, foyer, breakfast nook, cellar, bay window, venetian blinds, canopy, hammock, hope chest and 69 more...
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Family Words
Keeping it close to home. These are words to do with my life and my relatives, living, dead or legendary.
shabbishing, gee willikers, gubbins, cancer, snifter, liberty, gazunder, alexandra, strawberries, donald white, pegleg, red and white snake and 38 more...
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D is for Daisy Cutter
My D Words
data exhaust, daft punk, dandelion, dackelblick, daft, daisy, daisy cutter, dame, dandy, danke, dapper, death rattle and 62 more...
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absquatulate, bloviate, clinchpoop
In which I reveal that, for the most part, I have the sense of humour of a third-grader.
scuttlebutt, fisticuffs, milquetoast, besotted, behemoth, filibuster, verklempt, indefatigable, plenipotentiary, porcine, mitosis, strumpet and 65 more...
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Unnamed
zwieback, prophylactic, sidereal, demesne, manorial, dressage, arboretum, colporteur, intaglio, incise, pithecanthropus, incunabulum and 71 more...
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compound words
My favourites.
birdbath, gallowglass, lamplight, chokecherry, lightbox, riptide, softshoe, snowshed, bluebird, matchbox, sugarcane, nightcap and 64 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for dumbwaiter.
Prolagus Also listed under dumb waiter. Dec 4, 2010
oroboros See "Keeping Secrets" list for a bunch more codewords. Jul 18, 2008
bilby As a kid I used to use dumbwaiter for number codes because it has 10 letters and all are different. So, d = 1, u = 2, m = 3 and so on.
In my address book I'd write people's phone numbers in the form: weaubeme for example. I liked turning numbers into words because I liked words more than numbers. Still do :-7
I considered using artichokes but I'd never eaten one at the time so it seemed a bit presumptious. What if I tried one and didn't like it? My word-number code would suddenly be revolting. But I'd seen a dumbwaiter in a hotel we'd stayed in on holiday so that seemed quite okay.
Jul 18, 2008