breakfast

English Online Dictionary. What means breakfast‎? What does breakfast mean?

English

Etymology

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

• IPA^(key): /ˈbɹɛkfəst/, (Indic) /ˈbɾeːkˌfaːsʈ/
• (meal eaten after religious fasting, also): (US) IPA^(key): /ˈbɹeɪkˌfæst/, (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈbreɪkˌfɑːst/

Noun

breakfast (countable and uncountable, plural breakfasts)

2. The first meal of the day, usually eaten in the morning.
3. (by extension) A meal consisting of food normally eaten in the morning, which may typically include eggs, sausages, toast, bacon, etc.

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.
   • c. 1693?, John Dryden, Amaryllis

     The wolves will get a breakfast by my death.

Usage notes

• 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

Descendants

Translations

See also

• brunch
• jentacular

Verb

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.
3. (transitive) To serve breakfast to.

Synonyms

• break one's fast

Translations

Anagrams

• fast break, fastbreak