serving
noun
Simple meaning
A person quantity of food or drink taken as part of a meal.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
survingSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈsɝvɪŋ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
An individual quantity of food or drink taken as part of a meal
countable
The quantity of food or drink intended for one person in a single sitting; especially in relation to a meal.
countable
An instance of that act or process.
uncountablegerund
The act or process of serving.
countable
A layer added to the outside of an electrical cable to protect it.
countableby extension
A fraction or share.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A1 · Beginner (estimated)
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: An individual quantity of food or drink taken as part of a meal
Used this way, serving is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This sense is about measurement, so it is used where accuracy is the point.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Technical/specialist writing
- Academic writing
Nearby words
- service , a specialist term, precise but narrower
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Serve a purpose, role, or function.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
A person whose occupation is to serve at table (as in a restaurant).
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A handcart for serving food.
A dish used for serving food.
A girl who is a servant.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
The back line bounding each end of a tennis or handball court.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.