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Glite Dictionary
🥏 A flat disk ☕ A small dish 🟢 A round shape
saucer

saucer

3 1.0
A round flat shape like a small shallow plate
  • noun
  • /ˈsɔːsər/
translation icon : plato
  • The table was set with matching plates and saucers for each guest.
  • saucer-shaped
  • eyes like saucers
  • big saucer

One person sees it as being kind of a classic Shaw saucer shape.

Examples

  • The child was delighted to have a saucer to catch the drops of her ice cream.

  • There's a flying saucer overhead.

    Daleks' Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D. (1966)

  • Great big ol' blue eyes, big as a saucer.

    Jesse James (1939)

  • A saucer-sized circle of fluid on the sheet had dried and vanished.

    Fiction book (1997)

  • I found a baked-clay saucer with a tiny handprint pressed into it, and "Johnny 1968" scratched on the back.

    Fiction book (1993)

  • Blue eyes like saucers, rimmed with soot, regarded Annabelle unblinkingly.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • She placed her cup carefully on the saucer to avoid spilling any tea.

Synonyms

dish
vssaucer
329 1.0

A shallow round container used for holding or serving food

is a small shallow plate shape rather than a general serving container
disk
vssaucer
  • US
62 1.4

A flat, thin round object or surface

is a small shallow plate shape rather than a mere flat form

Compounds

flying saucer
  • Archaic
15 5.6

A round flat object in the sky that people think comes from another planet

cup and saucer
9.9

A garden flower with bell-shaped blue, purple, or white blooms

saucer magnolia
7.0

A small tree like a garden shrub with large pink to purple open flowers in spring

teacup and saucer
1.8

A small cup for tea with a matching flat dish to hold it

How Flat

tray
311 1.0
plate
304 1.0
saucer
3 1.0

Surface Forms

saucer singular
saucers plural

Morphology

saucer = sauce (opaque) = sauce + er

The shape meaning is only loosely related to the historical 'sauce dish' sense, so a learner cannot reliably derive it from 'sauce' and '-er'.

Etymology

Saucer originally meant a 'small dish for sauce' (from sauce + -er), and people then used the word for any flat, round shape. That's why we can call a lily pad, the moon, or a UFO 'like a saucer' — they look like a shallow plate.