vazaro

Decode it and it is obvious. A vazo at rank 1,674 is a vessel: not only the vase on the mantelpiece but any deep container for liquids or solids. -Ar- is the collective suffix, which turns one thing into the whole set of them. A vazaro is therefore the vessels considered together, and the dictionary adds the detail that decides the translation: especially the ones used for eating. Hence crockery, tableware, the dinner service.

A correction worth making explicit. English speakers reach for the dishes, and that is a use rather than a meaning. Lavi la vazaron really is the way to say do the washing-up, but vazaro names the objects, not the chore. If you want the chore, la lavado de la vazaro says so, or simply mi lavas la vazaron.

The -ar- family, which this band happens to demonstrate three times.Arbo a tree gives arbaro a forest. Vagono a carriage gives vagonaro a train, which is a beautiful piece of engineering: a train genuinely is a collection of carriages and no other language says so out loud. Gazeto a periodical gives gazetaro, the press. Vorto gives vortaro, a dictionary. Homo gives homaro, humanity. And in this same twenty-word band, ŝtipo gives ŝtiparo, a stack of logs and thence a pyre, while proleto gives proletaro, the proletariat.

What -ar- is not. It does not mean a heap or a pile at random, which is amaso, and it does not mean a group of people gathered for a purpose, which is grupo. -Ar- says: all the members of this kind, taken as one thing. That is why arbaro is a forest rather than a woodpile, and why vazaro is the service rather than the washing-up bowl.