Melba toast
1
4.8
- noun
- /ˈmɛlbə toʊst/
:
tostadas Melba
- After workouts, we eat a dinner of shrimp salad (dressing on the side), two slices of melba toast, and Voslau mineral water.
Examples
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Anna dutifully ate the halved pears and melba toast, and she got on the scale after her mother each morning, recording her weight on a wall chart in the bathroom.
Fiction book (1994) -
Caviar's gone, and there's no more Melba toast.
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With great deliberation, he eased a small piece of butter onto a tiny sliver of melba toast.
Fiction book (1990) -
Low-fat dips are perfect for spreading on Melba toast as a healthy appetizer.
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For breakfast, she enjoyed a bowl of yogurt topped with fresh fruit and Melba toast on the side.
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He served the soup with crispy Melba toast to add a delightful crunch to the meal.
How Crisp
Surface Forms
Morphology
The noun 'toast' makes the category clear—learners who know 'toast' will infer this is a type of toasted bread—but 'Melba' is a proper name that does not transparently convey the specific preparation (very thin, crisp slices). The culinary eponym derives from a person's name (Nellie Melba), so the exact sense and preparation details are not predictable without prior exposure, making the expression only partially transparent.
Etymology
Melba toast comes from the famous opera singer Nellie Melba. One popular story says a chef made very thin, dry slices of toast for her when she needed light food. That's why the name now means 'very thin, crisp slices of toasted bread'.