lunch

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   take the midday meal

   At what time are you lunching?

2. 2
   verb

   provide a midday meal for

   They lunched us well.

3. 3
   noun

   A light meal usually eaten around midday, notably when not as main meal of the day.

   We made an odd party before the arrival of the Ten, particularly when the Celebrity dropped in for lunch or dinner.

4. 4
   noun

   Any small meal, especially one eaten at a social gathering.

   After the funeral there was a lunch for those who didn't go to the cemetery.

5. 5
   verb

   To eat lunch.

   I like to lunch in Italian restaurants.

6. 6
   verb

   To treat to lunch.

   We dined him, we lunched him, we were photographed in his company by flashlight.

7. 7
   noun

   a midday meal

8. 8
   noun

   A break in play between the first and second sessions.

Etymology

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…