Dinner

Today's entry is inspired by flipping through the AHD until I found a word with interesting etymology. But it's a good one. Today, dinner means either the second or third meal of the day (depending on whether one subscribes to the breakfast-lunch-dinner ordering, or the more archaic breakfast-dinner-supper). Dinner first appears in Middle English, where it, like its Old French antecedent disner, signifies the first meal of the day. This in turn comes from the Vulgar Latin disiunare, itself from the earlier Latin disieiunare. The latter is essentially the Latinate equivalent of the Anglo-Saxon breakfast, from dis (reversed, back) and ieiunium (fast).

How then does the first meal become the last? Well, in classical and medieval times the fisrt meal of the day was the largest and most significant. As customs changed and the large meal was taken later in the day the word went with it; first to a large midday meal followed by a light supper, and now to the large evening meal.

All information from the AHD.