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catering

UK/ˈkeɪ.tə.ɹɪŋ/US/ˈkeɪ.tɚ.ɪŋ/
nounB2Common in everyday speech and writing · #5,083 of 15,258neutral

Catering is the business of supplying food for an event. A catering company, do the catering, catering staff.

Outside catering means food brought in rather than cooked on site. Catering is also the whole industry of feeding people commercially — the catering trade, catering college. As a verb, cater for means to provide what a group needs, and it is used far beyond food: cater for all abilities. Note caterer; and that self-catering accommodation is a holiday flat where you cook for yourself.

Jameson Fink · CC BY 2.0

Definitions of catering

  1. 1nouncateringThe business of supplying food for an event.B2

    “Her aunt runs a small catering business that does weddings and parties.”

    • Said"We're using outside catering for the wedding; I'm not feeding eighty."
    • WrittenThe catering arrived in silver vans at dawn, and the kitchen belonged to strangers for a day.
    • UsedBook the catering three months ahead for a summer event.
    • ContrastCatering, not cooking. Cooking is making dinner; catering is making dinner for a hundred people, for money. cook →
    • Not thisA friend bringing a cake is not catering. Catering is a business you hire.
    • SimplyThe catering is good. There is a lot of food.

    Patternoutside catering · a catering company / firm · do the catering · self-catering

catering is a food service.

Remember it

CATERing → they CATER for a hundred guests

They bring the food, the plates and the waiters for your wedding, and take it all away after: that business is catering.

Practised in In the Kitchen, Weddings & Celebrations

Practise this word

catering in the wild

  • Generally, in the US, catering is served to a group and is based on a common menu.

    Catering

  • Restaurants, where guests choose individual dishes from a menu, are not considered caterers; a restaurant may offer catering services, however.

    Catering

  • SATS controls about 80% of Changi Airport's ground handling and catering business.

    SATS Ltd

  • The food service (US English) or catering (British and Commonwealth English) industry includes the businesses, institutions, and companies which prepare meals outside the home.

    Food service

  • Mobile catering is the business of selling prepared food from some sort of vehicle.

    Mobile catering

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.