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 midday 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]

• Audio (US)

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• Audio (UK)

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• Audio (AU)

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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.
   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter V, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., OCLC 222716698:

     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)

• Cantonese: lunch
• Dutch: lunch
• German: Lunch
• Norwegian Bokmål: lunsj
• Norwegian Nynorsk: lunsj
• Polish: lunch
• Portuguese: lanche
• Spanish: lonche
• Swedish: lunch
• Yiddish: לאָנטש‎ (lontsh)

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.

   • 1934, Cole Porter, Miss Otis Regrets

     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.
   • 1906, H. G. Wells, The Future in America: A Search After Realities

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

• luncheonette

• breakfast
• dine, dinner
• supper

• lung廚／lung厨 (lan1 cyu4, “lunch”)

From English lunch.

lunch

1. (Hong Kong Cantonese) lunch (Classifier: 個／个 c; 餐 c)

lunch

1. (Hong Kong Cantonese) to eat lunch; to have lunch

• dinner

Borrowed from English lunch.

• IPA^(key): /lʏnʃ/

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• Hyphenation: lunch

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

1. A lunch, a meal eaten 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/

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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 Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Unadapted borrowing from English lunch.

• IPA^(key): /lant͡ʂ/

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• Rhymes: -ant͡ʂ
• Syllabification: lunch

lunch m inan

1. lunch (meal around midday)

• lunch in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• lunch in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Borrowed from English lunch.

lunch m (plural lunches)

1. lunch

• “lunch”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014

From English lunch.

• IPA^(key): /ˈlɵnɧ/

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• Rhymes: -ɵnɧ

lunch c

1. a lunch, a meal eaten about noon

• middag

• lunch in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)