dish

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
dish/dɪʃ/

▶noun

• 1 a shallow, flat-bottomed container for cooking or serving food.

  ■ (the dishes) all the items used in the preparation, serving, and eating of a meal.

  ■ a shallow, concave receptacle: a soap dish.

  ■ (also dish aerial) a bowl-shaped radio aerial.

• 2 a particular variety or preparation of food served as part of a meal.

• 3 informal a sexually attractive person.

• 4 (the dish) informal information which is not generally known or available.

• 5 concavity of a spoked wheel resulting from a difference in spoke tension.

▶verb

• 1 (dish something out/up) put food on to a plate or plates before a meal.

  ■ (dish something out) dispense something in a casual or indiscriminate way.

• 2 informal, chiefly Brit. utterly destroy or defeat.

• 3 N. Amer. informal gossip.

• 4 (usu. as adj. dished) make slightly concave.

– phrases
dish the dirt informal reveal scandal or gossip.

– derivatives
dishful noun (pl. dishfuls).

– origin OE disc ‘plate, bowl’, based on L. discus (see discus).