finger bowl

2 7.0

A small bowl of water for rinsing fingers between courses

noun
/ˈfɪŋɡər boʊl/

Archaic

: cuenco para dedos

She poured warm water into the finger bowl before passing it around to the guests.

Examples

If you're serving shrimp cocktail, don't forget to provide a finger bowl for your guests.
I'd like a finger bowl with mineral water for my Jeffrey.

Chupacabra Terror (2005)
A finger bowl for Jeffrey, please.

Chupacabra Terror (2005)
- There's nothing being served that requires finger bowls.

Small Time Crooks (2000)
The men said they'd rather have finger bowls.

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)
I distinctly requested a finger bowl.

Chupacabra Terror (2005)
Use the finger bowl.

One, Two, Three (1961)
Meanwhile, Mustafa was distributing finger bowls.

Fiction book (1996)
At formal dinners, a finger bowl is placed on the table to help guests clean their fingers between courses.

Surface Forms

finger bowl singular

finger bowls plural

Morphology

finger + bowl

The compound 'finger bowl' is compositionally built from 'finger' + 'bowl' so its meaning — a bowl associated with fingers (for rinsing) — can be directly inferred by a learner who knows both words. This is a literal, referential construction (rather than idiomatic), and although the cultural practice may be less familiar, the function is predictable from the constituents.

Etymology

The noun finger bowl comes from the table practice of cleaning your fingers in a small bowl of water after messy courses. That's why finger bowl means 'a small bowl of water for rinsing the fingers'.