Word.ws English Dictionary

dishing

/ˈdɪʃɪŋ/

dishing is the present participle and gerund of dish.

Noun

dishing (plural dishings)

  1. A dish shape or deformation; a concavity.
  2. (figuratively, sometimes) The act of placing in a dish, as when presenting food to be served.
    • The new musical coatings given to these old forms and fiavourings have ever been the curse of musical progress in this country, and it is high time that such “dishings-up” were turned away from, once and for ever, by the music-loving public.1887, The National Review, volume 9, page 209

Meaning of dish

Verb

dish (third-person singular simple present dishes, present participle dishing, simple past and past participle dished)

  1. (transitive) To put in a dish or dishes; serve, usually food.
  2. (informal, slang) To gossip; to relay information about the personal situation of another.
  3. (slang) To insult, speak ill of.
    • In the car with you I heard Joe's voice ― complaining about how invisible black people still are to whites; praising artists we admire; dishing someone's bad taste; planning future adventures; […]1989 February 5, Jewelle Gomez, “Journey”, in Gay Community News, volume 16, number 29, page 9
  4. (transitive) To make concave, or depress in the middle, like a dish.
    • to dish a wheel by inclining the spokes
  5. (archaic, slang, transitive) To frustrate; to beat; to outwit or defeat.
    • Have the Tories "dished the Whigs"?1867, The British Controversialist and Literary Magazine, page 460

See all 19 meanings of dish

Adjective

dishing (comparative more dishing, superlative most dishing)

  1. Shaped like a dish; concave.

Forms of dishing

Adjective
comparativemore dishing
superlativemost dishing
Noun
pluraldishings

Phrases with dishing

Words that rhyme with dishing

Questions about dishing

What does dishing mean?
Dishing means shaped like a dish; concave.
What is dishing the present participle and gerund of?
Dishing is the present participle and gerund of dish.
What part of speech is dishing?
Dishing can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce dishing?
Dishing is pronounced /ˈdɪʃɪŋ/.

Words near dishing in the dictionary

  1. dishies
  2. dishiest
  3. dishily
  4. dishin'
  5. dishiness
  6. dishing
  7. dishing off
  8. dishing out
  9. dishing the dirt
  10. dishing up
  11. dishings

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dishing (page history and authors); dish (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “dishing.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dishing. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.