See Also: dinner(dictionary)
dinner pad(medicine)
dinner(1)(dictionary)
dinner(2)(dictionary)
TV dinner(dictionary)
dinner theater(dictionary)
dinner table(dictionary)
Dinner Rolls(recipes)
dinner party(dictionary)
dinner lady(dictionary)

dinner(1) (iou)



dinner noun. ME.

The main meal of the day, eaten either about midday or in the evening; a formal meal of several courses, spec. one held publicly to honour a person, mark an occasion, etc.
done like a dinner Austral. slang utterly defeated. eat dinners: see EAT verb. have had more than a person has had hot dinners colloq.: used hyperbol. to indicate a person's wide experience of a given activity or phenomenon. like a dog's dinner: see DOG noun. WORKING dinner.
Day Lewis Sunday dinner was a joint, two veg. and pudding affair, far superior to our weekday lunches or evening meals. G. B. Shaw Speeches made by my uncle at charitable dinners.
Comb.: dinner-bell: rung to announce dinner; dinner-dance a dinner followed by dancing; dinner-horn US a horn blown to call workers on a farm etc. to dinner; dinner jacket a man's short usu. black dress-coat without tails, worn with a black tie for evening functions; dinner lady a woman employed to serve midday meals in a school; dinner-pail US a pail in which a labourer's or schoolchild's dinner is carried and kept warm (hand in one's dinner-pail, pass in one's dinner-pail, turn in one's dinner-pail (slang), die); dinner service a set of matching plates, dishes, etc., for serving dinner; dinner-table a dining-table; dinner theatre N. Amer. a theatre in which a meal is included in the price of a ticket; dinner-time: when dinner is customarily eaten; dinner wagon a trolley with tiers for holding dishes etc., for service in a dining-room.
dinnerless adjective not provided with a dinner M17.
dinnery adjective characterized by or suggestive of dinners M19.