Dinner

Dinner is a term with several meanings.

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Around North America in general, dinner may be a synonym of supper – that is, a large evening meal. However, in parts of Canada and the United States, dinner can be a synonym of lunch. (This is particularly true in rural areas of the Southern United States.)

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In the United Kingdom, to many people, dinner is a meal in the middle of the day but can also be used to mean an evening meal and there is sometimes snobbery and reverse snobbery about which meaning is used. School dinners is a British phrase for school lunches.

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According to the American Heritage Dictionary, the word "dinner" referred to breakfast in Middle English.

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A more formal definition of "dinner", especially outside North America, is any meal consisting of multiple courses. The minimum is usually two but there can be as many as seven. Possible courses are:

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• Hors d'oeuvres (also known as appetisers, starters)
• Soup course
• Fish course
• Salad course
• Main course (also known as meat course)
• Dessert course (also known as the Sweet or pudding course)
• Cheese course

Some confusion is caused by the word entrée, which is used in America for the main course, but which was originally one of the earlier courses (most likely the fish course, when the main dish was red meat). In French, les entrées are the appetisers, and entr?e is a somewhat pretentious word in Great Britain for the same thing ("starters" is more commonly seen).

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Dinner is generally followed by tea or coffee, sometimes served with mint chocolates or other sweets, or with brandy or a digestif. When dinner consists of many courses, these tend to be smaller and to be served over a longer time period than a dinner with only two or three courses. Dinners with many courses tend to occur at formal events such as dinner parties or banquets.

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This formal version of the meal is generally served in the evening, starting some time between 7.30 and 8.30 (in the Netherlands typically at 6.00). It may be served at midday or shortly afterwards. However this tends to be more common practice in Scotland than in other countries.

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Dinner: History ►



 

North America: North America is a continent in the northern hemisphere, bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the south by the Caribbean Sea, and on the west by the North Pacific Ocean. It covers an area of 9,355,000 square miles (24,230,000 square kilometers). In 2...

Supper: Supper is the evening meal - ordinarily the last meal of the day....

United States: :For other uses, see US (disambiguation), USA (disambiguation), and United States (disambiguation)....




Dinner related Images and Photos (experimental)

Dinner Call	Dinner Time	Dinner Rush (DVD)	Dinner Table
Dinner Party I	Dinner Preparations	After Dinner	Dinner at Eight
Dinner Is Ready	The Dinner Table	The Dinner Party	The Dinner Party