Word of the Day

: August 10, 2021

garnish

verb GAHR-nish

What It Means

1 a : decorate, embellish

b : to add decorative or savory touches to (food or drink)

2 : to equip with accessories : furnish

3 : to take (something, such as a debtor's wages) by legal authority : garnishee

garnish in Context

The mashed potatoes were garnished with chives.

"At times, the [Illinois Department of Employment Security] anti-fraud system assumed the employees themselves were the thieves and began asking the state comptroller to garnish their wages, officials acknowledged." — Joe Mahr, The Pantagraph (Bloomington, Illinois), 30 June 2021

Did You Know?

Although we now mostly garnish food, the general application of the "decorate" sense is older. The link between embellishing an object or space and adding a little parsley to a plate is not too hard to see, but how does the sense relating to debtors' wages fit in? The answer lies in the word's Anglo-French root, garnir, which has various meanings including "to give notice or legal summons" and "to decorate." 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.