dishlike

Dishlike is an English adjective meaning resembling or having the form of a dish. It is used to describe objects or shapes that are concave and bowl-shaped, similar to a shallow dish.

In terms of spelling, dishlike is usually written as a closed compound, though dish-like with a hyphen may appear in older texts or where stylistic consistency favors hyphenation. The word functions attributively (dishlike curvature) and predicatively (the crater is dishlike).

The term is common in descriptive or technical writing, including geometry, botany, archaeology, and geology, when a feature is broad, shallow, and curved like a dish. Example usages would be: a dishlike depression in the landscape; a dishlike bowl; a dishlike curvature of a wing profile. The adjective is typically compared with more common alternatives such as bowl-shaped or saucer-shaped, which may be preferred for clearer imagery or standard terminology.

Etymology: The form is a straightforward compound of the noun dish with the adjectival suffix -like, which yields many resemblance-based adjectives in English. There is no separate sense beyond likeness to a dish.

See also: bowl-shaped, dish-shaped, saucer-shaped, -like adjectives.