The Collaborative International Dictionary
Dumb-waiter \Dumb"-wait`er\, n. A framework on which dishes, food, etc., are passed from one room or story of a house to another; a lift for dishes, etc.; also, a piece of furniture with movable or revolving shelves.
Wiktionary
n. (alternative spelling of dumbwaiter English)
Usage examples of "dumb-waiter".
The auriferous tooth, the sedentary disposition, the Sunday afternoon wanderlust, the draught upon the delicatessen store for home-made comforts, the furor for department store marked-down sales, the feeling of superiority to the lady in the third-floor front who wore genuine ostrich tips and had two names over her bell, the mucilaginous hours during which she remained glued to the window sill, the vigilant avoidance of the instalment man, the tireless patronage of the acoustics of the dumb-waiter shaft - all the attributes of the Gotham flat-dweller were hers.
The supper came through the revolving: dumb-waiter in very good order, two dishes at a tune.
The service of the dining-room was made through a sham window in the wall, provided with a dumb-waiter revolving upon itself, and fitting the window so exactly that master and servants could not see each other.
Besides being an exceedingly spacious and dismal brick building, with a dismal iron railing in front, and long, dismal, thin windows, with little panes of glass, it looked out into the churchyard, where, time out of mind, between two yew-trees, one of which is cut into the form of a peacock, while the other represents a dumb-waiter, it looked into the churchyard where the monument of the late Bluebeard was placed over the family vault.
The supper came through the revolving: dumb-waiter in very good order, two dishes at a tune.
The service of the dining-room was made through a sham window in the wall, provided with a dumb-waiter revolving upon itself, and fitting the window so exactly that master and servants could not see each other.
As they passed the dumb-waiter shaft in the kitchen, I stuck a broomstick out through a hole in the wall and caught Buzzy McCauliffe flat on the ankles.
Down below, relays of temporaries carried wood from the dumb-waiter and tossed it on the blazing fire.