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catering

Noun
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Food and drink provided for people, especially by an inn or host. In older or literary use, it can mean provision or hospitality.

Detailed Definition
Here, the word points to the innkeepers’ role in supplying comfort and welcome to travelers. Hardy uses it in a slightly old-fashioned, service-oriented sense, not the modern event-planning meaning many readers know today.
Example
Example in poetry:
“When we as strangers sought Their catering care,” uses catering as provision and hospitality; “Catering trays arrived before the memorial began,” gives the noun a modern communal context; In a banquet poem, catering can reveal class, labor, and invisible service; “She left the catering shift smelling of rosemary and smoke,” centers the worker rather than the guests
Additional Notes
In the line “Their catering care,” the word has an older hospitality sense that many modern readers may not immediately recognize.; Found in the poem, At An Inn by Thomas Hardy
Also Known As
providing supplying serving
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