Definition of "dumbwaiter" [dumbwaiter]

• A small elevator used to convey food or other goods from one floor of a building to another. (noun)
• A portable serving stand or table. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "This device is more commonly known as the dumbwaiter, and later became an important means of delivering garbage to the basement of apartment buildings built in the early 1900s."
• "The food ordered from behind the counter comes up from the kitchen below on a dumbwaiter, which is very exciting for anyone who grew up watching Webster (but wasn‘t rich enough to have an actualdumbwaiter themselves)."
• "Casey: In that kitchen, some of the equipment worked, some of it didn't and we had to use the dumbwaiter."