This week's word is a plate. A wooden one.

A trencher is a wooden platter for serving food. Merriam-Webster traces it to the Middle English trenchour, meaning a knife or a serving platter, from an Anglo-French word meaning to cut. In Romeo and Juliet, the First Servingman rushes to clear the hall before the Capulets' feast and grumbles about a missing coworker: "Where's Potpan that he helps not to take away? He shift a trencher? He scrape a trencher?" And in Timon of Athens, Timon calls the flatterers who ate at his table "trencher-friends."

Next time someone eats every free sample at your booth, you know the word. Say it kindly.

Read the full story in the Faire Tidings Crier, Issue 25, What Makes a Faire Booth Work: https://fairetidingscrier.substack.com/p/what-makes-a-faire-booth-work?utm_source=faire-tidings-crier&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=wotw-podcast

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Watch the video version on Substack: https://fairetidingscrier.substack.com/p/word-of-the-week-trencher?utm_source=faire-tidings-crier&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=wotw-podcast

All episodes: https://renaissance-faire-word.captivate.fm

Sources:

Folger Shakespeare Library, Romeo and Juliet 1.5: https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/romeo-and-juliet/read/1/5/?utm_source=faire-tidings-crier

Folger Shakespeare Library, Timon of Athens 3.6: https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/timon-of-athens/read/3/6/?utm_source=faire-tidings-crier

Merriam-Webster, "trencher": https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/trencher?utm_source=faire-tidings-crier

Narrated with an AI voice. Written and fact-checked by the Faire Tidings Crier. Tidings travel.