tray

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   an open receptacle for holding, displaying, or serving articles or food

   I placed the food on the tray and offered it to my guests.

2. 2
   noun

   A small, typically rectangular or round, flat, and rigid object upon which things are carried.

   I carefully arranged the dishes on the tray and brought it upstairs.

3. 3
   noun

   The items on a full tray.

   Before long they had consumed a whole tray of shrimp cocktails and sent for another.

4. 4
   noun

   A component of a device into which an item is placed for use in the device's operations.

   The CD tray will not open.

5. 5
   noun

   A notification area used for icons and alerts.

   […]some developers try to use it that way for some reason (some applications inexplicably minimize to the tray rather than to the taskbar as they should).

6. 6
   verb

   to place (items) on a tray

   Be sure to tray eggs with the large end up.

7. 7
   verb

   to slide down a snow-covered hill on a tray from a cafeteria.

   Traying has provided collegiate fun and the occasional fatality for decades.

8. 8
   noun

   A type of retail or wholesale packaging for CPUs where the processors are sold in bulk and/or with minimal packaging.

Etymology

From Middle English trey, from Old English trēġ, trīġ (“wooden board, tray”), from Proto-West Germanic *trauwi, from Proto-Germanic *trawją (“wooden vessel”), from Proto-Indo-European *drewo-, *dóru (“tree; wood”). Cognate with Old Norse treyja (“carrier”), Old Swedish trø (“wooden grain measure”), Low German Treechel (“dough trough”), Ancient Greek δροίτη (droítē, “tub, vat”), Sanskrit द्रोण (droṇa, “trough”). Related to trough and tree.