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breakfast

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: break-fast and break fast

English

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Sausages, bacon, fried mushrooms and tomatoes, scrambled eggs and toast at a restaurant in Singapore. These foods are eaten for breakfast in many parts of the world.

Etymology

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From Middle English brekefast, brekefaste, equivalent to break +‎ fast (literally, "to end the nightly fast"), likely a variant of Old English fæstenbryċe, (literally, "fast-breach"). Cognate with Dutch breekvasten (“breakfast”).

Pronunciation

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Noun

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breakfast (countable and uncountable, plural breakfasts)

  2. The first meal of the day, usually eaten in the morning.
    You should put more protein in her breakfast so she will grow.
    I had an early dinner because the breakfast in this hostel is superb.
    • 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iv], page 125, column 2:
      A ſorry Breakfaſt for my Lord Protector.
    • 1828, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, volume I, London: William Harrison Ainsworth, page 293:
      His servant then flew like lightning and returned with a fine breakfast of wine and milk, and beautiful white bread and fruits, and such other things as little boys are fond of.
    • 1921, Ben Travers, A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC:
      Peter, after the manner of man at the breakfast table, had allowed half his kedgeree to get cold and was sniggering over a letter. Sophia looked at him sharply. The only letter she had received was from her mother. Sophia’s mother was not a humourist.
  3. (by extension) A meal consisting of food normally eaten in the morning, which may typically include eggs, sausages, toast, bacon, etc.
    We serve breakfast all day.
  4. The celebratory meal served after a wedding (and occasionally after other solemnities e.g. a funeral).
  5. (largely obsolete outside religion) A meal eaten after a period of (now often religious) fasting.
    • 1684, John Dryden, “Amaryllis”, in Miscellany Poems:
      The wolves will get a breakfast by my death.

Usage notes

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  • In the sense "meal eaten after a period of (now often religious) fasting", the word is more often spelled break-fast or break fast; it is also often pronounced differently.

Derived terms

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Descendants

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Descendants

Translations

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See also

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Verb

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breakfast (third-person singular simple present breakfasts, present participle breakfasting, simple past and past participle breakfasted)

  2. (intransitive) To eat the morning meal.
    • May 14, 1689, Matthew Prior, epistle to Fleetwood Shephard Esq.
      First, sir, I read, and then I breakfast.
    • 1847 October 16, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter I, in Jane Eyre. […], volume II, London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], →OCLC, page 12:
      “Oh, he set off the moment he had breakfasted! […]”
    • 1941 August, C. Hamilton Ellis, “The English Station”, in Railway Magazine, page 356:
      Fifty years ago, the traveller might breakfast well at home in London, and take nothing more than a cup of coffee at King's Cross.
  3. (transitive) To serve breakfast to.
    • 1987, Anne McCaffrey, The Lady: A Tale of Ireland, page 269:
      By seven-thirty she had breakfasted them, provided each with a packed lunch and Thermoses of coffee and tea

Synonyms

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Translations

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Anagrams

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