finger bowl

See also: fingerbowl

English

Alternative forms

Noun

finger bowl (plural finger bowls)

  1. A small bowl of warm water placed at each seat at a formal dinner for the guests to rinse their fingers with between courses.
    • 1920, F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Cut-Glass Bowl”, in Scribner's Magazine‎:
      In the cut-glass age, when young ladies had persuaded young men with long, curly mustaches to marry them, they sat down several months afterward and wrote thank-you notes for all sorts of cut-glass presents—punch bowls, finger-bowls, dinner-glasses, wine-glasses, ice-cream dishes, bonbon dishes, decanters, and vases […]

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