Breakfast
nounThe first meal of the day, eaten in the morning.
How to spell breakfast
9 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce breakfast
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does breakfast mean?
- nounThe first meal of the day, eaten in the morning.
Breakfast in a sentence
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I had eggs for breakfast.
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A proper breakfast sets you up for the day.
Where does breakfast come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
Breakfast is a transparent compound of two old English words: 'break' and 'fast'. The verb 'break' comes from the Old English brecan, meaning 'to shatter or interrupt', while 'fast' here is the noun for a stretch of going without food, from the Old English fæstan, 'to fast'. Put together, breakfast literally names the moment you break the overnight fast, the long stretch of not eating during sleep. The compound appeared in English in the 1400s and gradually replaced earlier terms for the morning meal. The spelling trap survives in the silent, swallowed second syllable: although it is written break plus fast, it is said 'BREK-fust', so the visible 'break' (not 'brek') and the buried 'a' in 'fast' both catch writers out.
How the word is built
- break (to break)
- fast (a period of going without food)
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