lunch

Recorded since 1580; presumably short for luncheon, but earliest found also as lunshin, lunching, equivalent to lunch +‎ -ing, with the suffix -ing later modified to simulate a French origin. Lunch is possibly a derivative of lump (as hunch is from hump. See hunch for more), or represents an alteration of nuncheon, from Middle English nonechenche (“light mid-day meal”) (see nuncheon) and altered by northern English dialect lunch (“hunk of bread or cheese”) (1590), which perhaps is from lump or from Spanish lonja (“a slice”, literally “loin”).

• IPA^(key): /lʌnt͡ʃ/, /lʌnʃ/, [lʌ̃nt͡ʃ]

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• Audio (UK)

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• Rhymes: -ʌntʃ

lunch (countable and uncountable, plural lunches)

1. A light meal usually eaten around midday, notably when not as main meal of the day.
   • 1898, Winston Churchill, chapter 5, in The Celebrity:

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

2. (cricket) A break in play between the first and second sessions.
3. (Minnesota, US) 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.

• (midday meal): luncheon; nones (obsolete)

• Dutch: lunch
• German: Lunch
• Portuguese: lanche
• Spanish: lonche
• Swedish: lunch

lunch (third-person singular simple present lunches, present participle lunching, simple past and past participle lunched)

1. (intransitive) To eat lunch.

   I like to lunch in Italian restaurants.

   • Cole Porter

     Miss Otis regrets she's unable to lunch today.

   • 1909, Frank Sidgwick, Love and battles (page 291)

     The gentleman had left for London after lunch. Yes, alone; but he had lunched in the hotel with a lady.

2. (transitive) To treat to lunch.
   • H. G. Wells

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

• luncheonette

• breakfast
• dine, dinner
• supper

From English lunch.

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lunch m (plural lunchen or lunches, diminutive lunchje n)

1. A lunch, meal around noon

• middageten n

• lunchen (verb)
• lunchtafel m or f
• lunchtijd m
• lunchuur n

• brunchen (verb)
• lunchroom

lunch

1. first-person singular present indicative of lunchen
2. imperative of lunchen

• maaltijd
• ontbijt

From English lunch.

• IPA^(key): /lœ̃ʃ/

lunch m (plural lunchs)

1. A lunch, (usually light) meal around noon
2. A light meal with sandwiches, cold cuts, pastry etc. served at a festive reception

• luncher (verb)

• “lunch” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

lunch m (plural lunches)

1. lunch

From English lunch.

• IPA^(key): /ˈlɵnɧ/

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lunch c

1. a lunch, a meal eaten about noon

• middag

• lunch in Svenska Akademiens ordlista över svenska språket (13th ed., online)