Definition
verbTo decorate with ornaments; to adorn; to embellish.
verbTo ornament with something placed around it.
Sentence Examples
Pomegranates are increasingly popular in cooking and baking, whether as juice, garnish, or focal ingredient.
What's the garnish for this drink?
Put a sprig of mint on top as a garnish.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English garnysshen, from Old French garniss-, stem of certain forms of the verb garnir, guarnir, warnir (“to provide, furnish, avert, defend, warn, fortify, garnish”), from a conflation of Old Frankish *warnijan (“to refuse, deny”) and *warnōn (“warn, protect, prepare, beware, guard oneself”), from Proto-Germanic *warnijaną (“to worry, care, heed”) and Proto-Germanic *warnōną (“to warn”); both from Proto-Indo-European *wer- (“to defend, protect, cover”). Cognate with Old English wiernan (“to withhold, be sparing of, deny, refuse, reject, decline, forbid, prevent from, avert”) and warnian (“to warn, caution, take warning, take heed, guard oneself against, deny”). More at warn.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"And all within with flowres was garnished,"
— 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto V”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 253:
"[…] the whip […] was garnished with a massive horse’s head of plated metal."
— 1848, Anne Brontë, chapter 14, in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall:
"By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens; his hand hath formed the crooked serpent."
— 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Job 26:13:
"[…] the good-humoured, affectionate-hearted Godfrey Cass was fast becoming a bitter man, visited by cruel wishes, that seemed to enter, and depart, and enter again, like demons who had found in him a ready-garnished home."
— 1861, George Eliot, Silas Marner, Part One, Chapter 3:
"When the editorial board of Fire met again, we did not plan a new issue, but emptied our pockets to help poor Thurman whose wages were being garnished weekly because he had signed for the printer’s bills."
— 1966, Langston Hughes, “The Twenties: Harlem and Its Negritude”, in Christopher C. De Santis, editor, The Collected Works of Langston Hughes, volume 9, page 473: