square meal
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of square meal
First recorded in 1830–40
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.
Three or four children cram behind each desk at a local school, which aims to feed each pupil a bowl of rice and beans so they can have at least one square meal per day.
From Reuters ● Dec. 13, 2021
Maybe for lunch today I’ll make a square meal of my own.
From The Verge ● Aug. 26, 2021
Harriet herself describes the perfect gingerbread as “a square meal and a good night’s sleep and a long, blood‐spattered howl at the moon rolled into one.”
From Slate ● Mar. 6, 2019
Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, February 12, 2011; 3:10 PM Gordon Smith believes few things are more American than a square meal with peas, carrots and corn.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 12, 2011
A hundred guineas when he was literally down to his last square meal!
From "And Then There Were None" 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.
