lunch

views updated

lunch and luncheon appear first towards the end of XVI in the sense ‘thick piece, hunch, hunk’; of uncert. orig. (perh. — Sp. lonja slice). The sense ‘slight repast between morning meals’ appears XVII, for luncheon, and first in the forms lunchin(g); the present use of lunch (XIX) is a shortening of this, whence lunch vb.

More From encyclopedia.com