carvery

nounC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speech — carve sits at #4,723leans spoken

A carvery is a counter where roast meat is sliced to order. Sunday lunch at a carvery.

You take your plate along it and take as many vegetables as you dare. A carvery is a British institution and is judged entirely on the roast potatoes.

Definitions of carvery

1nouncarveryA counter where roast meat is sliced to order.C2
“The carvery had three joints and a queue at noon.”

carvery is a counter.

Where it comes from

Proto-Indo-European
*gerbʰ-
Middle English
kerven
English
carve
English, today
carvery

From carve + -ry. carve comes from Middle English kerven. From Middle English kerven, from Old English ceorfan, from Proto-West Germanic kerban, from Proto-Germanic kerbaną, from Proto-Indo-European gerbʰ- (“to scratch”). Cognate with West Frisian kerve, Dutch kerven, Low German karven, German kerben (“to notch”); also prg gīrbin (“number”), cu жрѣбии (“lot, tallymark”), Ancient Greek γράφειν (“to scratch, etch”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

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