Link Centre Dictionary

dumbwaiter

dumb·wai·ter

US/ˈdʌmˌweɪtəɹ/ uncommon obsolete

noun

1.

a small elevator used to convey food (or other goods) from one floor of a building to another

Synonyms

Origin

From dumb (“unable to speak”) + waiter, originally separate words and describing the portable table's inability to relate gossip after the meal. By the use of the term to describe small service elevators in American homes in the 1840s, it simply meant dumb as “mechanical”, “unable to speak at all”.

Related words

Broader terms

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.