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What are the common and current, American English general words encapsulating:
1. Knives, forks, and spoons.
I know the words "silverware" as well as "flatware", but I don't know which one is more appropriate and precise here! On top of that, I don't know if these words sound normal in everyday conversation or not!
Note: also, "cutlery" AFAIC is a British / Canadian term which many Americans may even never heard.
2. Knives, forks, spoons, + plates, glasses, etc. used for meals.
I know "tableware" which as per Cambridge says, it is a formal word. While I need a word that people use in everyday speech at the table.
Note: as far as I know, "crockery" is a British / Canadian term which many Americans are not familiar with. Besides, it does not encompass "knives", "forks" and "spoons".
In addition to that, I am really interested to know, how can I distinguish the word "dishes" from these all?!
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When you say dishes do you mean more than one dish/bowl (bowls) or more general collective term for plates / bowls / etc (as in washing the dishes / dishwasher) – Smock 7 hours ago
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In this way I am refering to a package of things; perhaps: glasses, plates, forks and spoons etc. – A-friend 6 hours ago
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Of interest at EL&U: Where is the word “cutlery” in common usage; Plastic silverware - What's that? (American English); and What's the difference between 'cutlery', 'silverware' and 'crockery'? – choster 2 hours ago
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tableware and flatware are commercial terms. No one talks about their flatware or tableware. crockery is not just British. – Lambie 1 hour ago
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cutlery is not just British. I really do not understand where you find this erroneous stuff. – Lambie 1 hour ago
2 Answers
In my experience, silverware is the most common term for metal eating utensils (forks, knives, spoons), though flatware is also perfectly acceptable. I've also heard and used cutlery to describe this set of items, though in the U.S., cutlery can also refer to kitchen knives of all kinds.
Crockery is very common to refer to ceramic dish sets, also just referred to as "the dishes" or "dishware"; in my experience, the more formal version of this would be "fine china."
Tableware doesn't strike me as particularly formal, but there's also not very many situations where I'd be talking about the table settings as a whole, and not the individual parts--the glasses, the plates, the silverware, etc.
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Aha, and @Katy do you confirm that "dishes" and "tableware" are interchangeable in AmE and both can be used in everyday speech in the same way? – A-friend 6 hours ago
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1No one talks about their flatware and tableware. That is a commercial term, what you see when you go shopping. They talk about silverware and dishes in everyday speech. What people say everyday and what you see in stores/shops/online are two different things. – Lambie 1 hour ago
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2I'm not sure if this is common or something local to me, but in my experience, flatware is typically used to distinguish stainless steel utensils (flatware) from silver utensils (silver ware), but only when the distinction matters: eg. when setting up a formal dinner, one would specify whether to set the table with flatware or silverware. – asgallant 55 mins ago
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1@Lambie, I agree with asgallant, my wife will often ask for flatware at a restaurant, because she knows they do not have silverware. If we were at a restaurant with silverware, it would probably be set correctly to begin with! – Glen Yates 37 mins ago
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@GlenYates, When I am at a restaurant, I ask for knives and forks. flatware is a shopping, commercial term. Silverware is not just for knives and forks made of silver. You can ask for silverware even if it is steel rather than silver. – Lambie 22 mins ago
Regarding "the dishes":
A dish, in my area of the USA is more often called "a plate". It is a flat, usually round thing made from plastic, glass, or ceramic that you put non-liquid food on and eat from.
However, the dishes can either mean a collection of plates, (especially as compared to bowls, as in "put the dishes here and the bowls there"), but most often means all the things that are used for eating and drinking in the phrase, "do the dishes". To do the dishes means to clean all the plates, bowls, cups, glasses, forks, knives, spoons, pots, and pans or rinse them and put them in the automatic dishwasher to be cleaned. I believe in British English this is often called "washing up".
For example, in the song about Cinderella from the Disney animated movie Cinderella, they sing about her doing, "the dishes and the mopping/they always keep her hopping". In that case, the dishes means all the tableware as I described in at the end of the previous paragraph.
"Silverware" and "cutlery" are commonly used in my area of the USA to mean forks, knives, and spoon that are used at the table for eating. "Flatware" means the same thing (in my experience) but is rarely used in a normal household. "Tableware" is most often used in stores, catalogs, and websites that sell kitchen and dining implements to indicate all the things that are used to eat at the table as opposed to things used in the kitchen to cook food. "Flatware" is also used in the same contexts to mean the forks, knives, and spoons used at the table for eating, as opposed to any forks, knives, or spoons used for cooking, which are usually larger (and sharper, in the case of knives).
I rarely hear "cutlery" used in homes, but sometimes in restaurant the sets of silverware wrapped up in napkins that are placed at the tables are called "cutlery" or "cutlery sets" by staff or customers.
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There's also "plasticware", meaning utensils made of plastic, as commonly used with takeout food or on picnics. – Barmar 2 hours ago
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1@Barmar I'm not sure if I've heard it, but I'm not surprised if that is used. Around me that's usually called "disposable" or just "plastic", as in "pass me one of those plastic forks". – Todd Wilcox 2 hours ago
