Everything about Dinner totally explained
Dinner is the main meal of the day, eaten at midday or in the
evening. The meal normally consists of a combination of cooked, or sometimes uncooked, proteins (meat, fish or legumes), with vegetables, and/or starch products like
rice,
noodles, or
potatoes.
The word "dinner" comes from the French word
dîner, the "chief
repast (Meal) of the day", ultimately from the
Latin disiunare, which means
to break fast (as in the English word "
breakfast"). A dinner can also be a more sophisticated meal, such as a
banquet.
Dinner customs around the world
United Kingdom
In the
United Kingdom,
dinner traditionally meant the main meal of the day. Because of differences in custom as to when this meal was taken, dinner might mean the evening meal (typically used by
upper class people), or the midday meal (typically used by
working class people, who describe their evening meal as
tea). Vestiges of the
English class system remain in the choice of word for the evening meal - a person with upper-class antecedents might use neither "dinner" nor "tea" but, confusingly, "supper" for a less formal meal (which people in the North use to refer to a hot, often milky, drink such as cocoa or hot chocolate and biscuits, taken immediately before retiring for the night).
Large formal evening meals are invariably described as dinners (hence, also, the term
dinner jacket which is a form of
evening dress).
School dinners is a
British phrase for school lunches – reflecting the fact that such school meals were originally provided chiefly for the children of the working class, who typically had their main meal in the middle of the day – and women working in school canteens are generally known in the UK as
dinner ladies (however, if a pupil brings his or her food from home, it's a
packed lunch).
Ambiguity can be avoided by using
lunch for the midday meal.
A more formal definition of "dinner", especially outside North America, is any meal consisting of multiple courses. The minimum is usually two but there can be as many as seven. Possible courses are:
In French,
entrée means
entry,
admission.
L'entrée (singular) or
les entrées (plural) are the appetisers. In Great Britain,
entrée may be used for the same thing but the term
starters is more commonly used. In Australia,
entrée is commonly used instead of appetizers or starters. Although it was originally one of the earlier courses in North America also, it's now used for the main course. OED lists it as the main course, but gives an additional British English meaning: a ready-made dish served between the fish course and the main course.
Dinner is generally followed by
tea or
coffee, sometimes served with mint chocolates or other sweets, or with
brandy or a
digestif. When dinner consists of many courses, these tend to be smaller and to be served over a longer time period than a dinner with only two or three courses. Dinners with many courses tend to occur at formal events such as dinner parties or banquets.
This formal version of the meal is generally served in the evening, starting at some time between 7.30 and 8.30 (in the Netherlands, however, typically at 6). It may be served at midday or shortly afterwards; this tends, however, to be more typical of
Scotland than of other countries. In
Spain and
Portugal, where lunch is eaten relatively late, dinner is typically served late in the evening, no earlier than 8 p.m.
Australia, Canada, and United States
In
Australia and most parts of the
United States and
Canada, dinner is the evening meal served around 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. In some regions, such as the southern or rural mid-western United States, the
Atlantic provinces, parts of
Saskatchewan, and
Quebec, the evening meal is called
supper (souper in Quebec), and dinner (dîner) refers to the noon meal, which itself would be called
lunch in most parts of the United States and Canada. In the Southern United States, the main meal of the day is called Dinner, whether taken at noon or in the evening. On farms it was traditionally taken at noon. If Dinner, the main meal of the day, is at noon, the evening meal is called Supper. If Dinner, the main meal of the day, is in the evening the noon meal is called Lunch.
Mainly in Australia, tea and dinner are synonyms.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Dinner'.
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