Definition of DESSERT

dessert

Plural: desserts

Noun

  • The sweet course served at the end of a meal.
  • a dish served as the last course of a meal
  • The last course of a meal, consisting of fruit, sweet confections etc.
  • A sweet dish or confection served as the last course of a meal.

Examples

  • Can I see the dessert menu, please?
  • I ordered hummus for a starter, a steak as the main course, and chocolate cake for dessert.
  • Playing DESSERT on a triple-word score felt like a sweet victory at the end of the game.
  • Trifle is a favourite dessert of the English, but rivalled by pavlova in Australia and New Zealand.

Origin / Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French dessert, from desservir (“disserve”), from dés- (“dis-”) and servir (“serve”), thus literally meaning “removal of what has been served”.
Note: It was erroneously suggested (e.g. in "Glucose syrups: Technology and Applications" (Peter Hull, 2010)) that the word is derived from the name of Benjamin Delessert, the inventor of beet sugar. However, the term predates him by at least a century.

Synonyms

afters, sweet, pudding

Scrabble Score: 8

dessert: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Word
dessert: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
dessert: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary

Words With Friends Score: 8

dessert: valid Words With Friends Word