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Interesting - I wonder how much of modern American eating habits, with the big meal at the end of the day instead of the middle, is due to the words shifting? Start calling the evening meal dinner and suddenly we're eating huge at night and inventing a smaller word for midday... lunch (not even luncheon!).

I've always wondered about these words as well.

I think there must be some regional significance to them. In Minnesota supper clubs are common. I like they way sound as dinner clubs would sound more formal or urban.

I noticed when I went to Schiller's in NY that they have a supper menu in addition to their brunch, lunch and dinner menus. The supper menu I believe is for the time in between lunch and dinner which fits the definition above perfectly.

So, I guess when it is used in situations like these, I like the word. But I must be somewhat supper prejudiced because I typically don't like the word. For instance, "I'm going to fix supper." I don't know why, call me trite. Buffalo Mozzarella is tainted with dioxin from garbage dumps around Naples and I'm sitting here philosophizing about the word supper.

In eastern NC, "dinner" is used for the midday meal and "supper" for the evening meal. My grandmother is constantly confusing extras at family functions with these terms.

My grandparents are from very, very western PA (almost Ohio), and have always said "supper" for the evening meal. Though my own parents grew up there, they now say "dinner" after 30 years of East Coast living. I say dinner, too, and I don't know anyone who says "supper," which makes me think that perhaps it's more of a location and generational difference?

My grandmother, who lives in rural Missouri, eats her main meal at mid-day and calls it dinner. Her evening meal is much smaller and she calls it supper. I always thought that was a practical consideration -- that farm workers needed a larger meal to get through the afternoon.

I think since most people only have time to eat together for the evening meal (or breakfast), it makes sense that the large meal has shifted later. However, we still have large holiday meals at 1 or 2 in the afternoon and still call it "Christmas dinner."

I grew up in and still live in Massachusetts. I use both. Usually it's Dinner, as "what's for dinner?" or "dinner is on the table." But when I invite someone for "Sunday supper" or "a simple supper after the movie" I mean omelets or hearty soup, not a three course meal. It can be exquisite -- caviar, or truffled scrambled eggs. Supper usually means smaller, or more intimate, to me.

I don't like the word "supper" only because I've encountered the word in books about 19th century families where children are sent to bed without supper for misbehaviors and ever since I have associated the word "supper" with despotic families. I know it's irrational but the word just makes me cringe.

Historically, luncheon was originally a small meal eaten by the upper class women in late afternoon, to hold them through until supper, which was eaten quite late. Dinner was the big mid-day meal eaten by the lower classes.


Check out the book "Movable Feasts" for more information than you need on the naming and times of meals.

I've always said Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, anything in between was a Snack. I was a Navy Brat and lived all over, so I would guess the terms were those my parents used growing up.

My husband is from NW Minnesota and has always said Breakfast, Dinner, Supper. Lunches, when they occur, would be halfway between Breakfast and Dinner, and again between Dinner and Supper. Snacks were anything else eaten at other times of the day. He grew up in a farming community where days were quite long and arduous, assuming that accounts for the need for 5 meals.

In my (East Coast) house it was Dinner. But if you ate an early dinner, and then went out (say, to the theater), you might eat a light Supper after the show (bowl of soup or an omelette type meal, as someone mentioned above).

My dad uses the word supper when he's describing jet-lag food. As in, "just have a little supper, and try to stay up until 10:00" as a jet-lag conquering strategy.

Hmm ... My parents always said supper. They're from the Philippines, but my dad was in the Navy, so they traveled all over. Most of their time in the U.S. before he retired was spent in Gulfport, Mississippi. My older brothers, though, always called it dinner--I guess an influence of their friends in California where our family finally settled. I never even thought about how I just call it dinner. I guess it's because it's what people in Phoenix call it. I have a friend from Ohio who always calls the evening meal "supper," and it always sticks out as one of her neat little quirks. I like the sound of it, as long as it's not in context of being sent to bed without it!

This should be addressed by a new Web site, like The Pop vs. Soda Page.

My dad still says "supper", being from a rural plain community in PA.

On holidays and Sundays, when we kids still lived there anyway, the big main meal was at 1 and we'd have sandwiches or soup at night.

That is absolutely amazing rone.

For fear of saying "Pahhp" (think, "Da Bears" from SNL) I have started saying "soda".

I can be conscious of my Chicahhgo accent.

magmae beat me to it. in eastern NC dinner can refer to lunch. but i also grew up referring to supper with the word dinner too. so it was interchangeable. usually which you meant was solved in the context.

I have a USian (California) mom and a Canadian (Alberta) dad. My dad's meals would be: breakfast, dinner, supper. My mom's meals would be breakfast, lunch, dinner. To be clear, I just disposed of "dinner" entirely, and if lunch wasn't a proper mid-day meal but instead a set of snack laid out at an afternoon event, it was "luncheon" only.

I grew up just outside Philly, and we always called the evening meal - Dinner. We moved to Maine in my late teens, and everyone here calls dinner their noon meal. Supper is what you eat in the evening. After nearly 15 years of living here, I have been converted. I eat supper, except when I go out to dinner!!

where I grew up in WI it's dinner for noon meal and supper for evening meal. I moved west at 18 and I still get confused when I'm back there.

Lunch is in the middle of the day.
Supper is in the evening.
Dinner is a meal, at any time of the day, on a holiday only.

For example, today at noon I had an ordinary Thursday Lunch. When I get home from work, I'll have an ordinary Thursday Supper. But in November, families will get together for Thanksgiving Dinner. Twice - one family's Dinner at noon and the other family's Dinner in the evening.

Grew up in the midwest (near Chicago), am a female in my mid-30's.

My family always called the last meal of the day dinner.

It was breakfast, lunch, dinner in our house.

Size matters. In rural NC, we had "dinner" the big meal of fresh vegetables, meat and desert in the middle of the day. At school, cheese sandwich, was "lunch" . "Supper" was a more quickly prepared meal around 7 or as late as 10, if work continued. "brunch" was unheard of until I read about it in the 70's.

The issue is even more complicated at my house. My husband calls the evening meal "tea". He's from central England.