entry
lunch
/lʌntʃ/Light midday meal; to eat midday
From uncertain; likely Germanic/Scandinavian or continental lump (a thick piece).
from Middle English nonechenche (“light midday meal”) (see nuncheon) and altered by northern English dialect lunch...
from Spanish lonja (“a slice”, literally “loin”). === Pronunciation === (Received Pronunciation, General American)...
Word Ancestry
from Middle English nonechenche (“light midday meal”) (see nuncheon) and altered by northern English dialect lunch...
from Spanish lonja (“a slice”, literally “loin”). === Pronunciation === (Received Pronunciation, General American)...
A sandwich has a surprisingly grubby ancestry. In the 1500s and 1600s, English had a word for a thick chunk or hunk, and that chunky idea seems to have shadowed the later meal word luncheon, which eventually got chopped down to lunch. But there was also a rival path: nuncheon, a light midday snack, built on noon, the same old time-word that once meant the ninth hour of the day. So lunch sits at a little crossroads, part hunk, part noon, with a possible side glance at Spanish lonja, meaning a slice. By the 1780s it was common enough to be a verb too, and by 1955 'out to lunch' had become a perfect insult for somebody whose brain has clearly left the building.
The Story
A sandwich has a surprisingly grubby ancestry. In the 1500s and 1600s, English had a word for a thick chunk or hunk, and that chunky idea seems to have shadowed the later meal word luncheon, which eventually got chopped down to lunch. But there was also a rival path: nuncheon, a light midday snack, built on noon, the same old time-word that once meant the ninth hour of the day. So lunch sits at a little crossroads, part hunk, part noon, with a possible side glance at Spanish lonja, meaning a slice. By the 1780s it was common enough to be a verb too, and by 1955 'out to lunch' had become a perfect insult for somebody whose brain has clearly left the building.
Modern Usage
out to lunch: crazy, clueless, mentally absent
Popularized by: mid-20th-century American slang
Notable References
- out to lunch
Kin & Kindred
From 'lump'·a thick piece; hunk; mass
Derived Terms
English words from this root