English

Sausages, bacon, fried mushrooms and tomatoes, scrambled eggs and toast at a restaurant in Singapore. These foods are eaten for breakfast in many countries.

Alternative forms

• (meal eaten after fasting): break-fast, break fast

Noun

breakfast ‎(plural breakfasts)

1. The first meal of the day, usually eaten in the morning.

   You should put more protein in her breakfast so she will grow.

   • 1591, Shakespeare, Henry VI, part 2, act 1:

     a sorry breakfast for my lord protector

   • 1922, Ben Travers, chapter 1, in The Cuckoo in the Nest:

     Peter, after the manner of man at the breakfast table, had allowed half his kedgeree to get cold and was sniggering over a letter. Sophia looked at him sharply. The only letter she had received was from her mother. Sophia's mother was not a humourist.

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

   We serve breakfast all day.

3. The celebratory meal served after a wedding (and occasionally after other solemnities e.g. a funeral).
4. (largely obsolete outside religion) A meal eaten after a period of (now often religious) fasting.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Dryden

     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

Translations

See also

• brunch
• jentacular

Verb

breakfast ‎(third-person singular simple present breakfasts, present participle breakfasting, simple past and past participle breakfasted)

1. (intransitive) To eat the morning meal.
   • He breakfasted on pizza and Coke.
   • Prior

     First, sir, I read, and then I breakfast.

2. (transitive) To serve breakfast to.
   • 1987, Anne McCaffrey, The Lady: A Tale of Ireland, page 269:

     By seven-thirty she had breakfasted them, provided each with a packed lunch and Thermoses of coffee and tea

Synonyms

• break one's fast

Translations

Anagrams

• fast break