lunch

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A meal eaten in the middle of the day.

   We usually have lunch at around one o'clock.

2. 2
   verb

   To eat lunch.

   I like to lunch in small Italian restaurants near the office.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Luncheon is recorded in 1580 for a light midday meal and was probably formed from an obsolete late 16th-century lunch meaning “thick piece” or “hunk,” itself probably derived from Spanish lonja, “slice.” Lunch acquired the sense “light meal or snack” in the mid 17th century and came to denote a full meal in the 19th century. The source also dates its appearance as a shortened form of luncheon to the 1820s, when some people regarded it as lower-class or as a fashionable affectation.

Recorded since 1580 in the sense “piece, hunk”. The word luncheon with the same meaning is presumably an extension on the pattern of puncheon (“cask”) and truncheon (“cudgel”). But earliest found forms of luncheon include lunshin and lunching, which are equivalent to lunch + -ing, with the suffix -ing possibly later modified to imitate a French origin. In contrast, the more common sense “light meal” is first attested for luncheon in 1652 and for lunch in 1829, so in this sense the latter is probably a shortening of the former. Lunch is possibly a derivative of lump (as hunch is from hump. See…

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External links

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• Cambridge Dictionary
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