different between breakfast vs dinner

English

Etymology

From Middle English brekefast, brekefaste, equivalent to break +? fast (literally, "to end the nightly fast"), likely a variant of Old English fæstenbry?e, (literally, "fast-breach"). Cognate with Dutch breekvasten (“breakfast”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?b??kf?st/
• (meal eaten after religious fasting): also IPA^(key): /?b?e?k?fæst/

Noun

breakfast (countable and uncountable, plural breakfasts)

1. The first meal of the day, usually eaten in the morning.

   You should put more protein in her breakfast so she will grow.

   • 1591, Shakespeare, Henry VI, part 2, act 1:

     a sorry breakfast for my lord protector
2. (by extension) A meal consisting of food normally eaten in the morning, which may typically include eggs, sausages, toast, bacon, etc.

   We serve breakfast all day.

3. The celebratory meal served after a wedding (and occasionally after other solemnities e.g. a funeral).
4. (largely obsolete outside religion) A meal eaten after a period of (now often religious) fasting.
   • c. 1693?, John Dryden, Amaryllis

     The wolves will get a breakfast by my death.

Usage notes

• In the sense "meal eaten after a period of (now often religious) fasting", the word is more often spelled break-fast or break fast; it is also often pronounced differently.

Derived terms

Descendants

• ? Afrikaans: brekfis
• ? Irish: bricfeasta
• ? Maori: parakuihi
• ? Scottish Gaelic: bracaist
• ? Welsh: brecwast

Translations

See also

• brunch
• jentacular

Verb

breakfast (third-person singular simple present breakfasts, present participle breakfasting, simple past and past participle breakfasted)

1. (intransitive) To eat the morning meal.
   • 1847, Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, 1st edition, volume II, chapter I, page 12

     "Oh, he set off the moment he had breakfasted! […] "

   • May 14, 1689, Matthew Prior, epistle to Fleetwood Shephard Esq.

     First, sir, I read, and then I breakfast.

2. (transitive) To serve breakfast to.

Synonyms

• break one's fast

Translations

Anagrams

• fast break, fastbreak

English

Etymology

From Middle English dyner, from Old French disner (“lunch”, but originally “breakfast”), (modern Old French dîner), from Latin dis- + i?i?n? (“to break the fast”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?d?n?/
• (US) enPR: d?n??r, IPA^(key): /?d?n??/, [?d?n?]
• Rhymes: -?n?(?)
• Hyphenation: din?ner

Noun

dinner (countable and uncountable, plural dinners)

1. A midday meal (in a context in which the evening meal is called supper or tea).

   • At twilight in the summer […] the mice come out. They […] eat the luncheon crumbs. Mr. Checkly, for instance, always brought his dinner in a paper parcel in his coat-tail pocket, and ate it when so disposed, sprinkling crumbs lavishly […] on the floor.

   • 1919, Elisabeth P. Stork (translator), Heidi, Johanna Spyri[1]:

     It was already late for school, so the boy took his time and only arrived in the village when Heidi came home for dinner. […] "Come to the table now and eat with us. Then you can go up with Heidi, and when you bring her back at night, you can get your supper here."

2. The main meal of the day, often eaten in the evening.
   • 2016, VOA Learning English (public domain)

     I want to cook dinner.

3. An evening meal.

   I had some friends to dinner two nights ago.

4. A meal given to an animal.

5. A formal meal for many people eaten for a special occasion.
6. (uncountable) The food provided or consumed at any such meal.

Usage notes

• There are differences in usage according to the social class of the speaker. Working-class and lower-middle-class speakers in Britain, for example, are more likely to refer to the midday meal as "dinner" and the evening meal as "tea" rather than "supper". Some speakers use common collocations of dinner such as school dinner, Sunday dinner and Christmas dinner to describe meals that they wouldn't otherwise call a dinner.

Synonyms

• (an evening meal): supper, tea
• (meal given to an animal): chow
• (midday meal): lunch, luncheon
• (formal meal for many people eaten at a special occasion): banquet, feast, luncheon

Derived terms

Related terms

• (combinatorial form): deipno-
• (fear of): deipnophobia
• (verb): dine

Descendants

• ? Hausa: dina
• ? Maori: tina
• ? Swazi: lidina
• ? Unami: ntinel
• ? Xhosa: idinala

Translations

Verb

dinner (third-person singular simple present dinners, present participle dinnering, simple past and past participle dinnered)

1. (intransitive) To eat a dinner.
   • 2014, Caroline Akervik, White Pine, White Bear Lake, MN: Melange Books, Chapter 6, p. 57,^[3]

     Once I was geared up, I joined him on the wide, flat seat of the sled which was loaded up with hot food for the jacks who were dinnering out since they worked a forty far from the camp.

2. (transitive) To provide (someone) with a dinner.
   • 1887, Caroline Emily Cameron, A Devout Lover, London: F.V. White & Co., Volume 1, Chapter 11, p. 181,^[4]

     She had taken her about to concerts and exhibitions—she had dinnered her at the Colonies, and suppered her at the New Club.

   • 2004, Colm Tóibín, The Master, New York: Scribner, Chapter Two, p. 26,^[5]

     ‘The Irish were awful anyway,’ Lady Wolseley said, ‘and their not attending the season should be greeted with relief. The dreary matrons dragging their dreary daughters about the place and dinnering up every possible partner for them. The truth is that no one wants to marry their daughters, no one at all.’

Synonyms

• (eat a dinner): dine (formal)

Translations

Anagrams

• endrin, in dern