Luncheon

How to spell luncheon

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce luncheon

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does luncheon mean?

1. nounA formal or ceremonial midday meal, often hosted for guests or a special occasion.

Luncheon in a sentence

• The charity hosted a formal luncheon for its major donors.

• The wedding luncheon was served at noon in the hotel ballroom.

Where does luncheon come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Luncheon is a formal cousin of the everyday word lunch, and both surfaced in English around the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The root sense seems to come from a northern English dialect word lunch meaning a thick piece or hunk, as in a lunch of bread or cheese, which then drifted toward the idea of a small meal eaten between breakfast and dinner. The longer form luncheon was probably shaped by an older word nuncheon, a light midday refreshment, which itself joined noon with the Middle English schench, meaning a drink or a pouring out. Because that -eon ending was borrowed from nuncheon rather than built from a tidy suffix, it is the part that trips writers, since the spoken word offers no clear clue to the silent shape. Over time luncheon came to mean the more formal or ceremonial midday meal, the version served at weddings, business gatherings, and official events, while plain lunch stayed casual.

How the word is built

• lunch (a midday meal, from a dialect word for a lump of food)
• -eon (noun ending, likely shaped by the older word nuncheon)