Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An open, generally shallow concave container for holding, cooking, or serving food.
  • noun The containers and often the utensils used when eating.
  • noun A shallow concave container used for purposes other than eating.
  • noun The amount that a dish can hold.
  • noun The food served or contained in a dish.
  • noun A particular variety or preparation of food.
  • noun A depression similar to that in a shallow concave container for food.
  • noun The degree of concavity in such a depression.
  • noun Electronics A dish antenna.
  • noun Slang A good-looking person, especially an attractive woman.
  • noun Informal Idle talk; gossip.
  • intransitive verb To serve (food) in or as if in a dish.
  • intransitive verb To present.
  • intransitive verb To hollow out; make concave.
  • intransitive verb Informal To gossip about.
  • intransitive verb Chiefly British Slang To ruin, foil, or defeat.
  • intransitive verb To talk idly, especially to gossip.
  • idiom (dish it out) To deal out criticism or abuse.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In mining: A small rough vessel used in diamond and gold washing: sometimes used attributively: as, he obtained good dish prospects after crudely crushing up the quartz.
  • To put in a dish or dishes, as food; serve at table: often with up: as, to dish up the dinner.
  • To cause to resemble a dish; make concave.
  • To use up, as if by serving on a dish, or making a meal of; frustrate or disappoint; damage; ruin; cheat.
  • To push or strike with the horns.
  • To be concave or have a form resembling that of a dish: as, the wheel or the ground dishes. See I., 2.
  • To form with a concave center, as a disk, a wheel, a running track, or a racing-track.
  • In trotting, to throw the feet outward, moving them forward with a circular motion instead of in a straight line. Also paddle.
  • noun Any rimmed and concave or hollow vessel, of earthenware, porcelain, glass, metal, or wood, used to contain food for consumption at meals.
  • noun The food or drink served in a dish; hence, any particular kind of food served at table; a supply for a meal: as, a dish of veal or venison; a cold dish.
  • noun In Eng. mining: A rectangular box about 28 inches long, 4 deep, and 6 wide, in which ore is measured.
  • noun Formerly, in Cornwall, a measure holding one gallon, used for tin ore dressed ready for the smelter.
  • noun A discus.
  • noun The state of being concave or like a dish; concavity: as, the dish of a wheel.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To put in a dish, ready for the table.
  • transitive verb To make concave, or depress in the middle, like a dish.
  • transitive verb Low To frustrate; to beat; to ruin.
  • transitive verb slang to talk about (a person) in a disparaging manner; to gossip about (a person).
  • transitive verb (Arch.) to dispense freely; -- also used figuratively.
  • transitive verb to take (food) from the oven, pots, etc., and put in dishes to be served at table.
  • noun A vessel, as a platter, a plate, a bowl, used for serving up food at the table.
  • noun The food served in a dish; hence, any particular kind of food, especially prepared food
  • noun The state of being concave, or like a dish, or the degree of such concavity.
  • noun A hollow place, as in a field.
  • noun A trough about 28 inches long, 4 deep, and 6 wide, in which ore is measured.
  • noun That portion of the produce of a mine which is paid to the land owner or proprietor.
  • noun anything with a discoid and concave shape, like that of a dish.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old English disc, from Latin discus; see disk.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old English disc from West Proto-Germanic *diskaz, from Latin discus. Cognate with Dutch disch ("table"), German Tisch ("table").

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  • As a verb, in North American sports reporting, to pass (to):

    "From the top of the left circle, Perry dished to Weight" - Vancouver Sun, 1-10-08

    January 11, 2008