dining hall
Americannoun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of dining hall
First recorded in 1660–70
Explanation
A dining-hall is a large space where many people eat at the same time. If you go to college and live in a dormitory, you'll probably eat most of your meals in a dining-hall. You can use the word dining-hall when you're talking about a cafeteria or another group space for eating. You'll find dining-halls at universities, camps. and boarding schools. The word hall. a long room, comes from the Old English root heall, "spacious roofed residence," and dining is rooted in the Old French disner, "to have a meal."
Vocabulary lists containing dining-hall
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.
“In most CCRCs, when you go down to the dining hall, half the people have walkers or canes. In the promotional literature, you don’t see that at all,” Horowitz said.
From MarketWatch • May 8, 2026
Correctional officers removed more than 150 incarcerated women from their cells and confined them in a dining hall while conducting a search of their housing unit, the complaint alleges.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 28, 2026
Its stitched-together scenes—frat pledge party, dining hall food fight, toga party, horse in Dean Wormer’s office, homecoming parade—were individually hilarious and held together only by the individual characters.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 25, 2026
As I look back on my favorite egg recipes, I’m reminded of my childhood and early college years eating at the campus dining hall.
From Salon • Mar. 21, 2026
A loud whoooosh fills the dining hall, and a gust of wind knocks the Manifestor down.
From "The Manifestor Prophecy" by Angie Thomas
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.
