Ashtray: A Word That Is Slowly Leaving the Language
An ashtray is a small dish for cigarette ash and stubs. Once on every table, it is now a period detail, and the word is following the object out of daily use.
An ashtray is a shallow container for tobacco ash and cigarette ends. It is a plain compound — ash plus tray — and for most of the twentieth century it sat on café tables, aeroplane armrests and office desks.
Indoor smoking bans changed that. The word now turns up mainly in fiction set before about 2005, in antiques listings and in cars, where the tray survives as a coin holder.
- A dish for ash and stubs. *He tapped the cigarette on the ashtray.*
- A fitting in older cars and aircraft. *The ashtray in the armrest.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | ashtray | An overflowing ashtray. |
| Plural | ashtrays | Glass ashtrays. |
| Parts | ash + tray | A transparent compound. |
| Related | ashen | Ashen means grey as ash. |
How it is used in a sentence
- The ashtray had not been emptied in days.The literal object.
- Every table in the bar had a heavy glass ashtray.Period description.
- Her flat smelled like an ashtray.A common simile for stale smoke.
Words leaving with the objects
English is full of these: *telegram*, *carbon copy*, *dial tone*, *rewind*. Some vanish; others survive as metaphors long after the object goes. CC still means carbon copy in every email client, and nobody has seen carbon paper in years.
Is ashtray one word or two?
One word in modern English. Older texts sometimes print ash-tray with a hyphen.
What is the ashtray in a car called now?
Manufacturers usually list it as a storage compartment or coin tray; many models dropped it entirely in the 2010s.