menu

(mĕnˈyo͞o)

noun

1. A list of the dishes to be served or available for a meal.
2. The dishes served or available at a meal.
3. A list of available options, especially as displayed on a screen.

Word History: An enormous menu might be considered an oxymoron if one were to restrict the word etymologically. Menu can be traced back to the Latin word minūtus, meaning “small in size, amount, or degree” and also “possessing or involving minute knowledge.” Latin minūtus became Old French menut and Modern French menu, “small, fine, trifling, minute.” The French adjective came to be used as a noun with the sense of “detail, details collectively,” and “detailed list.” As such, it was used in the phrase menu de repas, “list of items of a meal,” which was shortened to menu. This word was borrowed into English, being first recorded in 1837. The French word had been borrowed before, perhaps only briefly, as a shortening of the French phrase menu peuple, “the common people.” This usage, however, is recorded in only one text, in 1658.