garnish
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\n \n Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 24, 2024 is:\n \n
\n \n\n garnish • \\GAHR-nish\\ • verb
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To garnish food or drink is to add decorative and tasty touches to it, such as a spiral of lemon peel.
\n\n// Aditi likes to garnish her mashed potatoes with chives and a dollop of sour cream.
\n\n// Slivers of dark chocolate garnished the cake.
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\u201cFor the more modern power diner, attuned to the virtuous aesthetics of wellness, there\u2019s a suite of blended juices served in slim-stemmed wine glasses, each garnished with a floating edible flower, and an airy hummus made of whipped sunflower seeds, served with a rainbow of crudit\xe9s on a bed of ice.\u201d \u2014 Helen Rosner, The New Yorker, 21 Apr. 2024
\n \n \n\n Did you know?
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When it comes to meanings, garnish giveth, and garnish taketh away. To garnish something is to decorate it, embellish it, give it that extra bit of culinary or designer flair\u2014say, a sprig of parsley or a string of garland. In decidedly different contexts, however, to garnish something\u2014such as the wages of someone who is in debt\u2014is to take it by legal authority. How did this word come to have such opposite meanings? The answer lies in garnish\u2019s Anglo-French root, garnir, which has various meanings including \u201cto give notice or legal summons\u201d and \u201cto decorate.\u201d Before wages were garnished, the debtor would be served with a legal summons or warning. The legal sense of garnish now focuses on the taking of the wages, but it is rooted in the action of furnishing the warning.
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