Definition of "garnish" in English

verb

1. To decorate with ornaments; to adorn; to embellish.

   • 1710, Joseph Addison, The Tatler, No. 163, 25 April, 1710, Glasgow: Robert Urie, 1754, p. 165, […] as that admirable writer has the best and worst verses of any among our English poets, Ned Softly has got all the bad ones without book, which he repeats upon occasion, to shew his reading, and garnish his conversation.

2. (cooking) To ornament with something placed around it.

   • a dish garnished with a sprig/spray of parsley

3. (archaic) To furnish; to supply.

4. (slang, archaic) To fit with fetters; to fetter.

5. (law) To warn by garnishment; to give notice to.

6. (law) To have (money) set aside by court order (particularly for the payment of alleged debts); to garnishee.

noun

1. A set of dishes, often pewter, containing a dozen pieces of several types.

2. Pewter vessels in general.

3. Something added for embellishment.

   • 1718, Matthew Prior, Alma: or, The Progress of the Mind, Canto 1, in Poems on Several Occasions, London: Jacob Tonson, p. 333, First Poets, all the World agrees, Write half to profit, half to please Matter and figure They produce; For Garnish This, and That for Use;

4. Clothes; garments, especially when showy or decorative.

5. (cooking) Something set round or upon a dish as an embellishment.

6. (slang, obsolete) Fetters.

7. (slang, historical, uncountable) A fee; specifically, in English jails, formerly an unauthorized fee demanded from a newcomer by the older prisoners.

   • 1699, B. E., A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew, London: W. Hawes et al., Garnish money, what is customarily spent among the Prisoners at first coming in.

8. (US, slang) Cash.