• n. 午餐
• vt. 吃午餐；供給午餐
• vi. 吃午餐；供給午餐

縮寫自luncheon,詞源不詳，可能來自lump,塊，塊狀食物，比較bump,bunch,hump,hunch.該詞原義為一塊面包，點心或其它小塊食物，可以在一天中的任何時間吃，但是進入20世紀，詞義逐漸固定為午餐。詞義演變比較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 ?ure, makes a point to keep up the dignity of the family I lives in. Wou'd you take a more ?olid refre?hment?--Have you lunch'd, Mr. Bribe?

BRIBE. Lunch'd O dear! Permit me, my dear Mrs. Prattle, to refre?h my sponge, upon the honey dew that clings to your ravi?hing pouters. O! Mrs. Prattle, this ?hall be my lunch. (ki??es)

["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.

我們往往每周共進一次午餐。

來自柯林斯例句

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

利用午飯時間坐在椅子上打個盹吧。

來自柯林斯例句

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

前兩天我們在最喜歡的餐館吃了午飯。

來自柯林斯例句

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

格雷絲把刀叉擺放在午餐桌上。

來自柯林斯例句

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

整個午飯期間，他一直在小心翼翼地回避房子的話題。

來自柯林斯例句