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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

dessert.

The last course of a meal, consisting of fruit, sweet confections etc.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/dɪˈzɜːt/UK/dɪˈzɝt/US
  1. The last course of a meal, consisting of fruit, sweet confections etc.

    countable · uncountable
    I ordered hummus for a starter, a steak as the main course, and chocolate cake for dessert.
    Can I see the dessert menu, please?
  2. A sweet dish or confection served as the last course of a meal.

    countable · uncountable
    Trifle is a favourite dessert of the English, but rivalled by pavlova in Australia and New Zealand.
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *dwóh₁ ▲ Proto-Indo-European *trísinflu. Proto-Indo-European *d(w)is- Proto-Italic *dis- Latin dis- Old French des- Middle French des- Proto-Indo-European *ser- Proto-Indo-European *-wós Proto-Indo-European *serwos Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *serweyéti Proto-Italic *serwijeti Proto-Italic *serwijit Proto-Italic *serwiō Latin serviō Old French servir Middle French servir Middle French desservir Middle French dessertbor. English dessert Borrowed from Middle French dessert, from desservir (“disserve”), from dés- (“dis-”) and servir (“serve”), thus literally meaning “removal of what has been served”. Note: It was erroneously suggested (e.g. in "Glucose syrups: Technology and Applications" (Peter Hull, 2010)) that the word is derived from the name of Benjamin Delessert, the inventor of beet sugar. However, the term predates him by at least a century.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.