Etymologically
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tray

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Pronunciation

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English trey, tray, inherited from Old English trīg (also trēg),[2][3][4][5][6] from Proto-Germanic *trawją,[1] which Barnhart and Etymonline write *traujam.[3][4] The OED and Barnhart compare trø (“a corn measure”).[2][3][6] The base is in ablaut with that of trēow (“tree, wood”), tree, so the first meaning may have been "wooden vessel";[2][3][7] Etymonline traces both to the PIE root Proto-Indo-European *dóru, "wood, tree",[4][1] and trough is related.[8] Skeat thought instead that the word was derived from trog (“trough”), though he called this doubtful.[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

A flat board or shallow open vessel with a rim: the OED's first example is in an Old English medical book, the Leechbook,[2] and Barnhart dates the Middle English form trey to 1270 and tray to 1350.[3]

Semantic evolution

The word was formerly applied to shallow open vessels of many kinds,[4] and in the 14th century to a mason's hod for mortar, a butcher's tray and a pig's trough.[2] Johnson (1755) defined it as a shallow wooden vessel for carrying meat or fish, giving Swedish as its source.[10] Later uses include a tray of food brought to someone not eating at table (1914, in Leonard Woolf),[2] a box of sand for a cat (1938),[2] the load-carrying part of a truck in Australia (1960)[2] and a drawer for a body in a mortuary (US, 1964).[2] In dialect, from Yorkshire and Lincolnshire to Oxfordshire and Essex, tray also meant a wooden hurdle for folding sheep, and in Essex a wooden basket for garden produce.[11][2]

Timeline

  • Old English – trīg, a tray.[2][6]
  • 1270 – the form trey.[3]
  • 1350 – the form tray; a mason's hod.[3][2]
  • 1829 – (dialect) a hurdle.[2]
  • 1914 – a tray of food brought to someone.[2]
  • 1938 – a cat's sand tray.[2]
  • 1960 – (Australia) the tray of a truck.[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A flat, shallow container of wood, metal or plastic with a raised rim, used for carrying or holding things, especially food and dishes: She brought in a tray of cups and a teapot.
  2. A shallow box or drawer for papers or small objects, as an in-tray on a desk.
  3. The amount a tray holds: a tray of biscuits.
  4. (Australia) The flat part of a truck on which goods are carried.
  5. (dialect, England) A hurdle.

Verb

  1. To lay out on trays, as fruit for drying.

Word family

  • trayful
  • ashtray
  • tea tray

Usage notes

Several other words have been spelled tray.[2][6] The third branch of a stag's antler, also tray antler or tray tine, is a variant of trey "three", recorded from 1812.[2][6][12] Middle English also had tray "grief, trouble", trega, used in the phrase tray and teen until 1578, and tray "to betray", traïr, until the 1560s.[2][6]

References

  1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
  4. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  6. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  11. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  12. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray