alms tray
- noun
- During the Sunday service, the usher passed the alms tray along each pew.
Examples
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Many congregants placed their donations in the alms tray.
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The silver alms tray was engraved with the church's name and founding date.
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Volunteers cleaned the alms tray before returning it to the sacristy.
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The church passed around the alms tray during the service.
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During the Sunday service, the usher passed the alms tray along each pew.
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The silver alms tray was engraved with the church's name and founding date.
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Many congregants placed their donations in the alms tray during the service.
Synonyms
239
1.0
A flat, shallow container used to carry or hold food and dishes
7
3.2
A shallow dish people pass around in church to collect money
1
9.9
A box in a church for collecting small donations for charity
1
6.9
A box in a church where people put money for the poor
A shallow dish that people pass around during a religious service to collect money
How Secure
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly and transparently derived from the constituents: 'alms' (donations) + 'tray' (a flat container) yields a tray for collecting donations during a service. This is a literal noun–noun compositional pattern found across languages and requires no idiomatic knowledge beyond the constituent meanings.
Etymology
Alms tray comes from a simple church picture: people pass a flat tray around to collect alms, meaning 'donations' for the poor. Because the tray is carried along the rows during a service to gather money, alms tray now means 'a tray used to collect donations'.