Meal Miːl Eat Lunch Time I Food Noun

• try not to eat between meals.
• lunch is his main meal of the day.
• to go out for a meal (= to go to a restaurant to have a meal)
• what time would you like your evening meal?

meal

1. an occasion when people eat food, especially breakfast, lunch or dinner
• Try not to eat between meals.
• Lunch is his main meal of the day.
• to go out for a meal (= to go to a restaurant to have a meal)
• What time would you like your evening meal?

Extra Examples

• I'm so busy I have to snatch meals when I can.
• The family was always noisy at meal times.
2. the food that is eaten at a meal
• SEE ALSO ready meal
  https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/ready-meal
• Enjoy your meal.
• a three-course meal
• They are learning to cook simple, healthy meals.

Extra Examples

• Hot meals are not available after 10 o'clock.
• Thanks for a delicious meal.
• I always want to go to sleep after a heavy meal.
• That night he made her favourite meal.
• The bar serves light meals.
• a meagre meal of bread and cheese
• She has very little time to prepare home-cooked meals.
• 60 pupils qualified for free school meals.
• There's a growing reliance on processed food and ready meals.
• The centre offers snacks and a hot midday meal.
3. grain that has been made into a powder, used as food for animals and for making flour
4. to spend a lot of time, energy, etc. doing something in a way that other people think is unnecessary and/or annoying
• Why do you have to make such a meal of everything?
5. a good meal that satisfies your hunger
• He looks as though he hasn't had a square meal for weeks.

Word Origin

• noun senses 1 to 2 Old English mǣl (also in the sense ‘measure’, surviving in words such as piecemeal ‘measure taken at one time’), of Germanic origin. The early sense of meal involved a notion of “fixed time”; compare with Dutch maal ‘meal, (portion of) time’ and German Mal ‘time’, Mahl ‘meal’, from an Indo-European root meaning ‘to measure’.