breakfast

Etymology

From Middle English brekefast, brekefaste, equivalent to break + fast (literally, "to end the nightly fast"), likely a variant of Old English fæstenbryċe, (literally, "fast-breach"). Cognate with Dutch breekvasten (“breakfast”).

noun

1. The first meal of the day, usually eaten in the morning.
   You should put more protein in her breakfast so she will grow.
2. (by extension) A meal consisting of food normally eaten in the morning, which may typically include eggs, sausages, toast, bacon, etc.
   We serve breakfast all day.
3. The celebratory meal served after a wedding (and occasionally after other solemnities e.g. a funeral).
4. (largely obsolete outside religion) A meal eaten after a period of (now often religious) fasting.
   c. 1693?, John Dryden, Amaryllis The wolves will get a breakfast by my death.

verb

1. (intransitive) To eat the morning meal.
   May 14, 1689, Matthew Prior, epistle to Fleetwood Shephard Esq. First, sir, I read, and then I breakfast.
   Fifty years ago, the traveller might breakfast well at home in London, and take nothing more than a cup of coffee at King's Cross. 1941 August, C. Hamilton Ellis, “The English Station”, in Railway Magazine, page 356
2. (transitive) To serve breakfast to.
   By seven-thirty she had breakfasted them, provided each with a packed lunch and Thermoses of coffee and tea 1987, Anne McCaffrey, The Lady: A Tale of Ireland, page 269