garnish
garnish Lexical Profile
garnish Game Scores & Validity
• noun
A small amount of decorative or flavorful food, such as herbs, lemon slices, or edible flowers, added to a dish or drink before serving to enhance its appearance or taste.
"The chef placed a sprig of fresh parsley on the soup as a colorful garnish."
• verb
To decorate or embellish a prepared dish or drink with a small amount of another food or herb before serving.
"You can garnish the roasted salmon with thin slices of lemon and fresh dill."
To legally seize or withhold a portion of a debtor's wages or property from a third party in order to satisfy an unpaid debt or court judgment.
"The court ordered the employer to garnish his wages until the overdue child support was paid in full."
Word Nuance & Usage
In legal contexts, 'garnish' and 'garnishee' are often used interchangeably as verbs to mean withholding wages for debt payment, though 'garnish' is more common in American English.
• Rhymes for garnish
Word Origin & Etymology
Borrowed from Old French 'garnir' (stem 'garniss-'), meaning 'to prepare, equip, or warn', which is of Germanic origin and related to the English word 'warn'. Both the culinary sense of equipping a dish with decoration and the legal sense of warning a third party to withhold funds trace back to this same root.