Lunch filled the gap when dinner slid later
In medieval Europe the main meal, then called dinner, landed late morning after hours of work. As English dinner crept into the evening through the late 1600s and 1700s, a lighter midday meal named lunch occupied the empty hours—and factories later locked that break into the workday.
The Oxford English Dictionary finds lunch’s origin uncertain—possibly from lump-like words or Spanish lonja, a ham slice—with a 1591 sense of a thick hunk and a modern midday meaning in use before 21 March 1776. Luncheon may extend lunch or relate to Old English nuncheon, a noon drink. Across cultures lunch can be the day’s centerpiece or a utilitarian pause: Bengali tables may run seven courses from shukto to paan; Spanish almuerzo between 1 and 3 p.m. is effectively dinner, while supper starts after 8:30; Italian midday eating is a full but lighter meal than evening supper.
Until the early nineteenth century, English luncheon was often a ladies’ leftover meal; Emily Post still described it in 1945 as generally given by and for women. Afternoon tea from the 1840s supplemented it. Isabella Beeton’s 1861 household guide treats luncheon briefly as cold joints, sweets, or hashed meats. Industrialization changed the gendered picture: men on long factory shifts first went home for a quick dinner, then carried portable food when workplaces moved farther away. Fixed midday hours, stalls, and chop houses institutionalized working-class lunch.
Regional habits still diverge. Japan favors rice or noodle bowls and bento boxes; Denmark’s frokost leans on rye bread and smørrebrød; Germany’s Mittagessen was traditionally the hot main meal; Portugal’s almoço is the day’s principal hot meal, while lanches means an afternoon snack. British weekday lunch may be pub fare, with Sunday roast as the week’s formal centerpiece. Poland’s obiad between 1 and 5 p.m.—soup plus main dish—is what many Poles map to English "lunch." The word is modern; the need to eat between morning work and evening dinner is older than the factories that named it.
Source: Lunch
