tray

• enPR: trā, IPA^(key): /tɹeɪ/

• Audio (US)

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• Homophones: trey, trait (one pronunciation)
• Rhymes: -eɪ

From Middle English treye, from Old English trēġ, trīġ (“wooden board, tray”), 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 δρουίτη (drouítē, “tub, vat”), Sanskrit द्रोण (droṇa, “trough”). Related to trough and tree.

tray (plural trays)

1. A small, typically rectangular or round, flat, and rigid object upon which things are carried.
   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 2, in The China Governess‎:

     Now that she had rested and had fed from the luncheon tray Mrs. Broome had just removed, she had reverted to her normal gaiety.  She looked cool in a grey tailored cotton dress with a terracotta scarf and shoes and her hair a black silk helmet.

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

2. A flat carrier for items being transported.

   Make sure that tray of eggs is properly loaded.

3. The items on a full tray.

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

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

   The CD tray will not open.

   The loader is responsible for placing the work on the trays for the plating machines.

5. (computing, graphical user interface, informal)  A notification area used for icons and alerts.
   • 2007, Brian Livingston, Paul Thurrott, Windows Vista Secrets

     […] 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. (Australia) (pickup) truck bed

• (truck bed platform): bed

• ashtray
• in-tray
• meat tray
• out-tray
• tray-table
• TV tray

tray (third-person singular simple present trays, present participle traying, simple past and past participle trayed)

1. (transitive) To place (items) on a tray.

   Be sure to tray eggs with the large end up.

2. (intransitive) To slide down a snow-covered hill on a tray from a cafeteria.

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

From Middle English traye, treie, from Old English trega (“misfortune, misery, trouble, grief, pain”), from Proto-Germanic *tregô (“mourning”), from Proto-Indo-European *dregʰ- (“unwilling, sullen, slack”). Cognate with Icelandic tregi (“sorrow, grief”), Gothic 𐍄𐍂𐌹𐌲𐍉 (trigo, “grief”).

tray (plural trays)

1. (obsolete) Trouble; annoyance; anger.

• half in tray and teen

From Middle English trayen, treien, from Old English tregian (“to trouble, harass, vex”), from Proto-Germanic *tregōną (“to become tedious, become lazy, sadden”), from Proto-Indo-European *dregʰ- (“unwilling, sullen, slack”).

tray (third-person singular simple present trays, present participle traying, simple past and past participle trayed)

1. (transitive, obsolete) To grieve; annoy.

From Middle English trayen, from Old French trair (“to betray”), from Latin tradō (“hand over, betray”). More at betray.

tray (third-person singular simple present trays, present participle traying, simple past and past participle trayed)

1. (transitive, obsolete) To betray.

tray (plural trays)

1. Alternative form of trey (“third branch of deer's antler”)

• Arty, arty

tray

1. electric wire; barbed wire