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Trough vs Tray - What's the difference?

trough | tray |

As nouns the difference between trough and tray

is that trough is a long, narrow container, open on top, for feeding or watering animals while tray is trouble; annoyance; anger.

As verbs the difference between trough and tray

is that trough is to eat in a vulgar style, as if eating from a trough while tray is to grieve; annoy.

trough

English

(wikipedia trough)

Noun

(en noun)
  • A long, narrow container, open on top, for feeding or watering animals.
    • One of Hank's chores was to slop the pigs' trough each morning and evening.
  • Any similarly shaped container.
  • # (Australia, New Zealand) A rectangular container used for washing or rinsing clothes.
  • Ernest threw his paint brushes into a kind of trough he had fashioned from sheet metal that he kept in the sink.
  • A short, narrow canal designed to hold water until it drains or evaporates.
    • There was a small trough that the sump pump emptied into; it was filled with mosquito larvae.
  • (Canada) A gutter under the eaves of a building; an eaves trough.
    • The troughs were filled with leaves and needed clearing.
  • (agriculture, Australia, New Zealand) A channel for conveying water or other farm liquids (such as milk) from place to place by gravity; any ‘U’ or ‘V’ cross-sectioned irrigation channel.
  • A long, narrow depression between waves or ridges; the low portion of a wave cycle.
    • The buoy bobbed between the crests and troughs of the waves moving across the bay.
    The neurologist pointed to a troubling trough in the pattern of his brain-waves.
  • (meteorology) A linear atmospheric depression associated with a weather front.

    • Verb

    (en verb)
  • To eat in a vulgar style, as if eating from a trough
    • he troughed his way through 3 meat pies.

    References

    * Oxford English Dictionary Online

    See also

    * crib * ditch * trench

    tray

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) traye, treie, from (etyl) .

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (obsolete) Trouble; annoyance; anger.
    • Derived terms
    * (l)

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) trayen, treien, from (etyl) .

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (obsolete) To grieve; annoy.

    • Etymology 3

    From (etyl) treye, from (etyl) . More at (l).

    Noun

    (wikipedia tray) (en noun)
  • A small, typically rectangular or round, flat, rigid object upon which things are carried.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham)
    • , title=(The China Governess) , chapter=2 citation , passage=Now that she had rested and had fed from the luncheon tray Mrs. Broome had just removed, she had reverted to her normal gaiety.  She looked cool in a grey tailored cotton dress with a terracotta scarf and shoes and her hair a black silk helmet.}}
  • A flat carrier for items being transported.
  • The items on a full tray.
  • A component of a device into which an item is placed for use in the device's operations.
  • (computing, graphical user interface, informal)  A notification area used for icons and alerts.
  • * 2007 , Brian Livingston, Paul Thurrott, Windows Vista Secrets
    • some developers try to use it that way for some reason (some applications inexplicably minimize to the tray rather than to the taskbar as they should).
    Derived terms
    * in-tray * meat tray * out-tray * tray-table * TV tray

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To place items on a tray.
    • Be sure to tray eggs with the large end up.
  • To slide down a snow-covered hill on a tray from a cafeteria.
    • Traying has provided collegiate fun and the occasional fatality for decades.

    Etymology 4

    From (etyl) trayen, from (etyl) . More at (l).

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (obsolete) To betray.

    • Anagrams

    *