It's The Word of the Day for October 24th.
Today's word is Garnish, spelled G-A-R-N-I-S-H.
Garnish is a verb.
To garnish food or drink is to add decorative and tasty touches to it,
such as a spiral of lemon peel.
Here's the word used in a sentence from The New Yorker by Helen Rosner.
For the more modern power diner attuned to the virtuous aesthetics of wellness,
there's a suite of blended juices served in slim, stemmed wine glasses,
each garnished with a floating edible flower,
and an airy hummus made of whipped sunflower seeds served with a rainbow of crudité on a bed of ice.
When it comes to meanings, garnish, giveth, and garnish, takeeth away.
To garnish something is to decorate it, embellish it,
give it that extra bit of culinary or designer flair, say a sprig of parsley or a string of garland.
In decidedly different contexts, however,
to garnish something such as the wages of someone who is in debt is to take it by legal authority.
How did this word come to have such opposite meanings?
The answer lies in Garnish's Anglo-French root, Garnier,
which has various meanings, including to give notice or legal summons and to decorate.
Before wages were garnished, the debtor would be served with a legal summons or warning.
The legal sense of garnish now focuses on the taking of the wages,