lunch
Americannoun
-
lunches
plural
verb (used without object)
-
lunches,
present (3rd person singular)
-
lunched,
past participle, past
-
lunching
present participle
verb (used with object)
-
lunches,
present (3rd person singular)
-
lunched,
past participle, past
-
lunching
present participle
idioms
noun
-
a meal eaten during the middle of the day
-
(among older people) mid-afternoon tea
verb
-
(intr) to eat lunch
-
(tr) to provide or buy lunch for
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
lunchsimple
-
lunchessimple
-
have lunchedperfect
-
has lunchedperfect
-
am lunchingprogressive
-
are lunchingprogressive
-
is lunchingprogressive
-
have been lunchingperfect progressive
-
has been lunchingperfect progressive
Past
-
lunchedsimple
-
had lunchedperfect
-
was lunchingprogressive
-
were lunchingprogressive
-
had been lunchingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of lunch
First recorded in 1585–95; short for luncheon
Explanation
Lunch is the meal you eat in the middle of the day. If you only have a short lunch break during your school or work day, you might quickly eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The size of your lunch depends on what country you live in. In the US, most people eat a small lunch and a larger dinner at the end of the day. The word is a somewhat fancy verb, too: "Shall we lunch at the club, or have the cook make us something at home?" Lunch is a shortened version of luncheon, which may stem from the earlier dialectical lunch, "hunk of bread and cheese."
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 entire offensive line eats together at lunch in the cafeteria.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 11, 2026
This is the result mostly of long lunch breaks and complex schedules rather than making up for holidays, which are not especially long compared with other EU countries.
From BBC ● Oct. 8, 2026
At the weekly Tuesday lunch meeting after Oct.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 5, 2026
Hilton turned to my father as we dug into our lunch.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 3, 2026
I sat at the Invisibles table at lunch.
From "Bye Forever, I Guess" by Jodi Meadows
Why am I paying this person many millions and having dull weekday lunches when I could just fork the whole operation over to Claude?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 12, 2026
The agenda is big on healthier lunches in schools, and the campaign is calling for public policy to “integrate healthy food into how Michigan delivers healthcare.”
From Slate ● Oct. 7, 2026
I’ll be sharing some of my favorites over the coming weeks, but a pot of soup in the fridge can quietly carry several lunches without asking much of you.
From Salon ● Sep. 22, 2026
The school had no toilet for female students and expired food packets were being used to prepare lunches.
From BBC ● Sep. 11, 2026
Luma told Natnael of the things she’d done for this player: When his free lunches at school were cut off because his mother hadn’t properly filled out the paperwork, Luma took care of it.
From "Outcasts United: An American Town, a Refugee Team, and One Woman's Quest to Make a Difference" by Warren St. John
On our second date, we lunched at a Japanese restaurant, where he asked about my values and dreams.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 7, 2025
The two spacecraft, lunched on a single rocket, separated in space.
From BBC ● Jan. 16, 2025
In the statement Monday noting Rubiales’ resignation, after Ceferin had lunched with the women delegates, there was praise but not words of solidarity toward the Spanish players or women’s soccer in general.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 11, 2023
Then had come a break before the fourth round, so Scheffler and McIlroy and Jon Rahm and others had lunched together.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 28, 2022
I knew the other clerks and young bond-salesmen by their first names and lunched with them in dark crowded restaurants on little pig sausages and mashed potatoes and coffee.
From " The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The two leaders ended up getting on well, even lunching together at times, despite belonging to different camps, said a senior U.S. defense official.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 15, 2026
Munir accompanied Sharif during a visit to Washington in June, lunching with Trump.
From Barron's ● Apr. 12, 2026
A walkway runs along the length of it, passing by a giant dinosaur skeleton, a beach volleyball pitch and dozens of Googlers lunching under the hazy November sun.
From BBC ● Nov. 19, 2025
Hours before lunching with Rendon in Lynwood, I had breakfast up the road with Hector De La Torre in his hometown of South Gate.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 27, 2024
“I saw him for the first time when lunching here yesterday.”
From "Murder on the Orient Express" by Agatha Christie
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.
