eatery
Americannoun
-
eateries
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of eatery
Explanation
Use the word eatery when you're talking about a cafe or restaurant. You might stop at a great local eatery for a burger after seeing a movie. Eatery is a casual or informal word for a place to buy and eat prepared food. A diner is one kind of eatery, and a Chinese restaurant is another. You might have a favorite eatery among all the choices on a college campus, or know of an all-night eatery where you can get a snack at three a.m. Eatery was first used right around 1901, from eat, with its Old English root of etan, "to eat, devour, or consume."
Vocabulary lists containing eatery
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.
See Examples For:
The owner says his team is now considering a new name for the eatery.
From BBC ● Sep. 30, 2026
Many customers came over to the table to pick up a shirt and share the many fond memories of the eatery with Wong-Young.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2026
The 38-year-old San Fernando Valley native, who is an avid fan of 1950s and ’60s style, lamented the loss of a long-tenured eatery.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2026
After opening her third eatery in January, she finally brought her 14-year-old daughter from Nepal following a decade of separation and she is now enrolled in a Japanese school.
From Barron's ● Jul. 1, 2026
Often, Bobby walked barely two blocks from his apartment to one of his favorite restaurants, Anestu Grösum—“The First Vegetarian”—and climbed the stairway to the pumpkin-painted second-floor eatery.
From "Endgame" by Frank Brady
The supply at the eateries was traced back to a Taylor Farms facility in Central Mexico.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 12, 2026
Officials say traceback and outbreak data have linked the largest outbreak to lettuce supplied to the affected Taco Bell eateries to a Taylor Farms’ facility, Taylor Farms de Mexico, located in central Mexico.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 24, 2026
The Michelin Guide awards up to three stars to eateries based on ingredient quality, flavour mastery, cooking technique, chef's personality and consistency.
From BBC ● Jul. 22, 2026
And while business manager visa holders have a three-year grace period to meet the new conditions, some thriving businesses -- including many popular eateries in Okubo -- fear they won't manage.
From Barron's ● Jul. 1, 2026
There was a heat unlike anything I’d ever felt, a heat from the great buildings, compounded by the millions of people jamming themselves into subway cars, into bars, into those same tiny eateries and cafes.
From "Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates
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.
