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cheese tray

cheese tray

1 1.6
A flat dish that holds and serves different cheeses
  • noun
  • /tʃiːz treɪ/
translation icon : bandeja de quesos
  • The restaurant offers a selection of wines to pair perfectly with their signature cheese tray.
  • fruit and cheese tray

Examples

  • To complete the cheese tray, I cut several loaves of fragrant homemade oatmeal bread into triangles and threw in a wheel of Jarlsberg for good measure.

    Fiction book (1993)
  • Use them to serve drinks, to hold silverware, or as part of a cheese tray.

    Blog text (18)
  • I'm taking either a cheese tray or a cookie plate to an auction this weekend and am using your trick either way.

    Blog text (10)
  • I go to get the Heinekens, you know, the vodka and mix, Scotch, a nice cheese tray, lay it all out.

  • I handed an unsmiling Audrey a cheese tray.

    Fiction book (1993)
  • At the party, we displayed a beautiful cheese tray filled with various artisanal cheeses.

  • She prepared a lovely cheese tray with crackers and fruit for the picnic.

Synonyms

tray
vscheese tray
311 1.0

A flat, shallow container used to carry or hold food and dishes

is specific to displaying and serving selections of cheeses rather than general items
cheeseboard
vscheese tray
1 2.3

A board or tray for serving different cheeses and crackers

focuses more on display and general serving rather than mealtime use

How Big

cheeseboard
1 2.3
cheese tray
1 1.6

Surface Forms

cheese tray singular
cheese trays plural

Morphology

cheese + tray

The meaning is directly and transparently derived from combining 'cheese' (types of cheese) with 'tray' (a flat serving container); a cheese tray is literally a tray used for serving cheese. This straightforward noun–noun composition is common cross-linguistically and should be immediately comprehensible to a B1 learner who knows both constituents.

Etymology

Cheese tray comes from the simple image of cheese placed on a flat tray so people can taste different kinds. Hosts would arrange cheeses, crackers and fruit on the tray to share, so the phrase now means 'a dish for serving a selection of cheeses'.