How to pronounce dumbwaiter
American English pronunciation
DUM-way-tur
- IPA
- /ˈdʌmˌweɪtɚ/
- Syllables
- DUM · way · tur (3 syllables, stress on the 1st)
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What dumbwaiter means
A small lift for carrying food or dishes between floors
In a sentence: The cook sent the soup upstairs in the dumbwaiter.
Where it comes from: It first named a serving table that took the place of a servant, a "waiter" that couldn't talk about the dinner afterward. By the 1840s Americans used it for small lifts in their homes.
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