noun
- utensils, as knives, forks, and spoons, used at the table for serving and eating food.
- dishes or containers for the table that are more or less flat, as plates and saucers (distinguished from hollowware).
noun US and Canadian
- cutlery
- any relatively flat tableware such as plates, saucers, etcCompare hollowware
1851, from flat (adj.) + ware (n.). Originally as distinguished from hollow ware; U.S. sense of “domestic cutlery” recorded by 1895.