tray

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A shallow flat receptacle with a raised edge or rim, used for carrying, holding, or displaying articles.
2. n. A shallow flat receptacle with its contents: took the patient a dinner tray.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A trough, open box, or similar vessel used for different domestic and industrial purposes. Specifically
2. n. A flat shallow vessel or utensil with slightly raised edges, employed for holding bread, dishes, glassware, silver, cards, etc., and for other household uses. Trays are made in many shapes of wood, metal, papier-mâché, etc., and have various names according to their use, as tea-tray, bread-tray, silver-tray, etc. Thin trays of veneers are also used to pack butter, lard, and light materials for transport in small quantities. The tray differs from the salver only in size. Trays are used also in mining, as a washing-tray, a picking-tray.
3. n. A wide shallow coverless box of wood or cardboard, used in museums for packing and displaying specimens of natural history. Trays for small mammals, birds, etc., are usually from 1 to 3 feet long, half as wide, and from 1 to 3 inches deep; they are set in tiers, often in drawers of cabinets, or form such drawers. Trays for eggs are usually of light cardboard, from 1 by 2 to 4 by 8 inches wide and very shallow, fitted in a single layer in larger wooden trays or cabinet-drawers. The drawers or frames for holding eggs in an incubator are usually called trays. These are generally skeleton frames of wood, with bottoms of wire netting, and transverse wooden cleats fixed at intervals corresponding to the diameter of an egg, to prevent the eggs from rolling off.
4. n. A shallow and usually rectangular dish or pan of crockery ware, gutta-percha, papier-mâché, metal, or other material, used in museums for holding wet (alcoholic) specimens when these are overhauled for study, etc. Similar trays are used for ova in fish-culture, for many chemical operations, in photography, etc.
5. n. A hod.
6. n. A hurdle.
7. n. Trouble; annoyance; anger.
8. To grieve; annoy.
9. To betray.
10. n. Deceit; stratagem.
11. n. Same as trey.
12. n. The third branch, snag, or point of a deer's antler.

Wiktionary

1. n. obsolete Trouble; annoyance; anger.
2. v. transitive, obsolete To grieve; annoy.
3. n. A small, typically rectangular or round, flat, rigid object upon which things are carried.
4. n. A flat carrier for items being transported.
5. n. The items on a full tray.
6. n. A component of a device into which an item is placed for use in the device's operations.
7. n. computing, graphical user interface, informal A notification area used for icons and alerts.
8. v. transitive To place items on a tray.
9. v. intransitive To slide down a snow-covered hill on a tray from a cafeteria.
10. v. transitive, obsolete To betray.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. v. obsolete To betray; to deceive.
2. n. A small trough or wooden vessel, sometimes scooped out of a block of wood, for various domestic uses, as in making bread, chopping meat, etc.
3. n. A flat, broad vessel on which dishes, glasses, etc., are carried; a waiter; a salver.
4. n. A shallow box, generally without a top, often used within a chest, trunk, box, etc., as a removable receptacle for small or light articles.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. an open receptacle for holding or displaying or serving articles or food