lunch

缩写自luncheon,词源不详，可能来自lump,块，块状食物，比较bump,bunch,hump,hunch.该词原义为一块面包，点心或其它小块食物，可以在一天中的任何时间吃，但是进入20世纪，词义逐渐固定为午餐。词义演变比较breakfast,dinner.

lunch

lunch: [16] When lunch first appeared on the scene, at the end of the 16th century, it was used for a ‘slice or hunk of food’ (‘He shall take bread and cut it into little lunches into a pan with cheese’, Richard Surfleet, Country Farm 1600). It appears to have been borrowed from Spanish lonja ‘slice’. The roughly contemporaneous luncheon, probably just an arbitrary lengthening of lunch, came to be used in the early 17th century for a ‘snack’ (the link with ‘hunk or piece of food’ is obvious), and eventually for a ‘light meal’. Lunch returned to the language in this sense at the beginning of the 19th century, as an abbreviation of luncheon.

lunch (n.)

"mid-day repast," 1786, shortened form of luncheon (q.v.). The verb meaning "to take to lunch" (said to be from the noun) also is attested from 1786:

PRATTLE. I always to be ſure, makes a point to keep up the dignity of the family I lives in. Wou'd you take a more ſolid refreſhment?--Have you lunch'd, Mr. Bribe?

BRIBE. Lunch'd O dear! Permit me, my dear Mrs. Prattle, to refreſh my sponge, upon the honey dew that clings to your raviſhing pouters. O! Mrs. Prattle, this ſhall be my lunch. (kiſſes)

["The Mode," in William Davies' "Plays Written for a Private Theatre," London, 1786]

But as late as 1817 the only definition of lunch in Webster's is "a large piece of food." OED says in 1820s the word "was regarded either as a vulgarism, or as a fashionable affectation." Related: Lunched; lunching. Lunch money is attested from 1868; lunch-time (n.) is from 1821; lunch hour is from 1840. Slang phrase out to lunch "insane, stupid, clueless" first recorded 1955, on notion of being "not there." Old English had nonmete "afternoon meal," literally "noon-meat."

1. We tend to meet up for lunch once a week.

我们往往每周共进一次午餐。

2. Use your lunch hour to have a nap in your chair.

利用午饭时间坐在椅子上打个盹吧。

3. We had lunch the other day at our favorite restaurant.

前两天我们在最喜欢的餐馆吃了午饭。

4. Grace laid out the knives and forks at the lunch-table.

格雷丝把刀叉摆放在午餐桌上。

5. All through lunch he had carefully avoided the subject of the house.

整个午饭期间，他一直在小心翼翼地回避房子的话题。