Trenchour

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An archaic term for a wooden plate or board on which food was served and cut, as used at medieval tables
2. A medieval word for a flat trencher used for carving and serving meat at a meal
3. An old-fashioned word for the board or platter from which food was eaten or sliced

Etymology: In Middle English, the word named a person whose job was cutting, specifically a carver of meat at table. It comes from Anglo-Norman and Old French "trenchier", "to cut", which is probably related to the Vulgar Latin "trinicare", "to cut into pieces". The same stem gave English "trencher", the wooden board on which food was cut and served. The word's sense darkened over time. Because a cutter's knife could also serve as a weapon, "trenchour" came to mean a cutthroat or murderer, so the household servant who sliced the joint could also be a killer. Like many older English words, it is now obsolete, and its surviving relatives are the everyday "trencher" and the phrase "trencherman", meaning a hearty eater.