Everyday LifeGreek → English
Dish
/dɪʃ/noun
A shallow open container for food, and the food served in it.
The Greek roots
δίσκος
dískos
quoit, flat plate
Literally: “flat round thing”
Follow a root:δίσκος9 words
The story of the word
Old English disc, a plate, came from Latin discus before English had absorbed much Latin at all, a kitchen word carried north with Roman tableware. The Greek behind it is the athlete's quoit, so the plate is named for its flatness and for being thrown. Dish meaning a prepared food is the container standing in for its contents, the same move as drinking a glass.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → Old English
- First recorded
- Old English
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
diskdeskdaisdiscus
In a sentence
Every family has one dish that nobody else makes the same way.