Other forms: garnished, garnishes, garnishing
To garnish is to add a small pretty finishing touch to a plate. Garnish with parsley, a garnish of lemon, garnished simply.
The garnish should be edible and related to the dish, which is the rule the parsley-on-everything era ignored. A cocktail garnish contributes aroma as well as looks. In law, to garnish wages is to divert part of them to a creditor by court order, which is a completely separate sense from the same French word about furnishing.
1verbgarnishTo add a small pretty finishing touch to a plate.
“Garnish the soup with a little fresh parsley before serving.”
Patterngarnish sth with + noun · a garnish of + noun · garnished with
2verbdivertTo divert part of wages to a creditor.
“The court ordered his employer to garnish his wages to pay his debts.”
3noundecorationA small piece of food added to a dish to make it look or taste better, such as a sprig of parsley.
“Each plate came with a wedge of lemon and a sprig of parsley as a garnish.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
Also accepted in games: decorate
The Old French meant to supply: a garnish supplies the plate with its last small touch — one green leaf, a slice of lemon.
hooks ontosupply
Old French garnir means to furnish or provide, from a Frankish word meaning to warn or equip. Warn and garrison come from the same root.
Proto-Germanic
*warnijaną — to worry, care, heed
Frankish
*warnijan — to refuse, deny
Old French
garnir
Middle English
garnysshen
English, today
garnish
Built from
From Middle English garnysshen, from Old French garnir, stem of certain forms of the verb garnir, guarnir, warnir (“to provide, furnish, avert, defend, warn, fortify, garnish”), from a conflation of Old Frankish warnijan (“to refuse, deny”) and warnon (“warn, protect, prepare, beware, guard oneself”), from Proto-Germanic warnijaną (“to worry, care, heed”) and Proto-Germanic warnōną (“to warn”); both from Proto-Indo-European wer- (“to defend, protect, cover”). Cognate with Old English wiernan (“to withhold, be sparing of, deny, refuse, reject, decline, forbid, prevent from, avert”) and warnian (“to warn, caution, take warning, take heed, guard oneself against, deny”). More at warn.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA