Etymologically
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dine

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Pronunciation

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English dinen, also dignen,[2] borrowed from Old French disner, also diner,[3][4][5][6][2] with an Anglo-Norman form deiner;[7] the modern French verb is dîner.[7][3] The French verb is traced to Vulgar Latin *disiūnō,[7][4][6] a contracted form of *disiēiūnō (“to break one's fast”),[3][4][8][6][5] which the OED finds recorded in post-classical Latin from the 11th century.[7] It is formed from dis- (“undo, reverse”) and Late Latin iēiūnō (“to fast”),[3][4][5][9] from iēiūnus (“fasting, hungry”),[3][5] also the source of jejune.[3][9] Weekley explains that the Old French verb comes from the unstressed stem of the Latin verb and desjuene from the stressed one;[10] déjeuner, to breakfast, is a learned doublet of the French verb.[7] The Oxford Dictionary of English instead derives it from desjëuner (“to break fast”).[11][12] The Anglo-Norman verb is recorded from about 1150.[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

To eat the first substantial meal of the day; to eat: about 1325, in Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle.[7][2] Barnhart and Etymonline date it to about 1300.[4][3]

Semantic evolution

In French the verb first meant to eat the first meal of the day, to breakfast (early 12th century), and later to eat a meal at midday (early 16th century) and in the evening (before 1747).[7] The OED explains the shift by changing habits: the first substantial meal of the day moved later, and a light breakfast came in before it, especially for manual workers, while the verb stayed with the main meal.[7] In English dine meant eating the chief meal of the day from the start;[3][2] Johnson (1755) defined it as eating the chief meal about the middle of the day.[14] Today it usually means eating in a restaurant or at a formal dinner.[7] The transitive sense, to give someone dinner, is dated by Etymonline to the late 14th century[3] and by the OED to about 1475.[7] From about 1380 to 1500 dine could also mean simply to eat something.[7] To dine with Duke Humphrey, to go without dinner, is recorded from 1594,[7] to dine out by 1758,[3] and to dine and dash, to leave a restaurant without paying, from 1979, first in North America.[7] The noun dine, dinner, recorded from before 1425,[7] is obsolete except in dialect;[12] it lived on in Scots, as in "the hour o' dine".[15]

Timeline

  • c. 1325 – to eat the chief meal of the day.[7][2]
  • c. 1380 – to eat something (obsolete by 1500).[7]
  • late 14th century – to give a dinner to.[3]
  • before 1425 – noun, dinner (now Scots and dialect).[7][12]
  • 1594 – to dine with Duke Humphrey, to go hungry.[7]
  • 1758 – to dine out.[3]
  • 1979 – to dine and dash.[7]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To eat dinner, the main meal of the day; now often to eat a meal in a restaurant or at a formal dinner: We dined at a small café by the harbour.[16][5][7]
  2. To have something as one's meal; usually followed by on, upon or off: They dined on grilled fish.[16][5][12]
  3. To give a meal to; to entertain someone at dinner, especially in wine and dine: The firm wined and dined its new clients.[16][5][7]

Noun

  1. (obsolete except in dialect) Dinner, or dinner-time.[12][5][15]

Word family

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  6. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  9. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  10. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  11. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  12. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  13. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  15. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  16. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins