Restaurant
nounA business where meals are prepared and served to paying customers on the premises.
How to spell restaurant
10 letters · 3 syllables
How to pronounce restaurant
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does restaurant mean?
- nounA business where meals are prepared and served to paying customers on the premises.
Restaurant in a sentence
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That restaurant has great pizza.
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We have a reservation at the restaurant tonight.
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This restaurant specialises in seafood.
Where does restaurant come from?
Language of origin: French
The word comes from French restaurant, which originally meant 'something that restores', a present participle of the verb restaurer, 'to restore or refresh', itself from the Latin restaurare, 'to rebuild or renew'. In eighteenth-century Paris the term first described a rich, restorative meat broth sold to revive tired or weak diners, a kind of edible tonic. By extension it came to name the establishment where such restoring broths were served, and from there it grew into the general sense of an eating house. English adopted the word in the early 1800s, keeping the French spelling intact, which is exactly why the unstressed middle, the silent 'au' cluster, and the final '-rant' trip up so many writers. The same restaurare root also gives English 'restore' and 'restaurateur', a useful reminder that the idea of restoring is buried inside the spelling.
How the word is built
- restaur- (from French restaurer: to restore, refresh)
- -ant (agent/noun suffix)
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