the.com/carryout
Dinner you didn't cook, eaten in the container it came in.
means Food you order from a restaurant and take with you to eat elsewhere, rather than dining in.
from A straightforward compound of 'carry' and 'out' — exactly what you do with it. It's largely a Midwestern and mid-Atlantic American term, standing alongside regional cousins 'takeout' and 'to-go,' all describing the same act of ordering food and leaving with it rather than eating on-site. The word doesn't hide anything clever; it's as literal as compound words get.
- regional split
- carryout in the midwest, takeout on the coasts
- etymology
- literally just food you carry out
- peak usage
- baltimore and dc say it almost exclusively
- container tax
- always comes with a plastic fork you never use