Word of the Day: May 21, 2009 - lunch

lunch (lunch) - noun

Lunch is "a midday meal between breakfast and dinner."

Original used in the written form around 1585-1595. When lunch first appeared on the scene, at the end of the 16th century, it was used for a 'slice or hunk of food' ("He shall take bread and cut it into little lunches into a pan with cheese." - Richard Surfleet, Country Farm, 1600). It appears to have been borrowed from the Spanish word lonja, meaning "slice." The roughly contemporaneous luncheon, probably just an arbitrary lengthening of lunch, came to be used in the early 17th century for a "snack," and eventually for a "light meal."  Lunch returned to the language in this sense at the beginning of the 19th century, as an abbreviation of luncheon.

Photo by moria

Comments

[barb]

What are you serving for lunch today? It's 11:30 in Louisiana and I am starving.
xoxo
Barb