restaurant
Americannoun
-
restaurants
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
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
Compare meaning
How does restaurant compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
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.
See Examples For:
And my favorite restaurant for that is Badmaash, and they just opened one in Venice.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 7, 2026
"But if you're bored with it, there's a special restaurant there. They have the best chips in town - be my guest, come along."
From BBC ● Aug. 6, 2026
The other day we went out to a restaurant, and we all went back to the kitchen in the back, just to say hi and thank you to the staff who work there.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026
As overlapping food-safety concerns continue to sweep up restaurant chains this summer, Sweetgreen on Thursday became the latest to put numbers on the impact.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 6, 2026
He wants to go to culinary school on the East Coast and open his own restaurant someday.
From "Split the Sky" by Marie Arnold
The borough of Westminster has more licensed venues than anywhere else in the UK with about 500 pubs, bars and wine bars, and roughly 1,750 cafes and restaurants.
From BBC ● Aug. 7, 2026
Wendy’s withdrew its outlook for the year and cut its quarterly dividend as it works to return to sales growth at its U.S. restaurants.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026
It has a team working off of a master list of desired tenants, boosting Burbank for consideration for popular shops, restaurants and cafes.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 7, 2026
The group also controls the tourism company Gaviota, which owns dozens of hotels, sometimes in partnership with international hotel chains, as well as marinas, restaurants, taxi services and car-rental companies.
From Barron's ● Aug. 6, 2026
They always hovered over him in restaurants and went to all kinds of special trouble on his behalf.
From "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt
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.
