restaurant
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of restaurant
An Americanism first recorded in 1820–30; from French, noun use of present participle of restaurer, from Latin restaurāre “to restore, reestablish”; cf. re- ( def. ), store
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Explanation
A restaurant is a place — usually inside a building — where you go to eat food, which, most of the time, you must pay for. Restaurant comes from the French restaurer, which means "to provide food for." Restaurants will provide food for you if you've got the cash, and most of the time they'll even let you sit down right there and eat it. Common examples of restaurants include burger joints, cafeterias, pizzerias, sandwich shops, steak houses, seafood shacks, (some) hot-dog stands, ice cream parlors, taquerias, Chinese takeout, (some) bakeries, and fine-dining establishments.
Vocabulary lists containing restaurant
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
A way of saying: Here you are sitting in a white-tablecloth restaurant where a martini and fries costs more than your phone bill, but here’s a jar of candy to snack on.
From Salon • Apr. 25, 2026
That may be the direction that the restaurant world is heading toward.
From MarketWatch • Apr. 25, 2026
"When we reached the street we went to a nearby restaurant that gave us food and water."
From BBC • Apr. 25, 2026
After moving from Seattle to Oklahoma about 20 years ago, she worked on farms before opening Living Kitchen, a restaurant attached to her own farm.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 24, 2026
When the door opened on the top floor, music from the string ensemble floated in from the open-air restaurant.
From "The Red Car to Hollywood" by Jennie Liu
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
