Can I use Dinner to refer to every meal I have?
As a Chinese who own a English QQ group, i can always see some of my friends say "I'm going to have my dinner", "I've finished my dinner", "when will you eat your dinner" to refer to every meal of the day. So i just want to know, if it's applicable in the forementioned cases, because i think that dinner should be used in some formal occasions, such as you are inviting your friend to feast.

Someone can help to clarify this for me ? Thanks in advance.Hi All, Thanks to your answers, now i know my friends are right with this words in most times. I've been to cautious to use it.

Question

Can I use Dinner to refer to every meal I have?
As a Chinese who own a English QQ group, i can always see some of my friends say "I'm going to have my dinner", "I've finished my dinner", "when will you eat your dinner" to refer to every meal of the day. So i just want to know, if it's applicable in the forementioned cases, because i think that dinner should be used in some formal occasions, such as you are inviting your friend to feast.

Someone can help to clarify this for me ? Thanks in advance.Hi All, Thanks to your answers, now i know my friends are right with this words in most times. I've been to cautious to use it.

Answer

"Dinner" can refer to the meal at about 1pm (午饭) or about 6pm (晚饭).

Some people use it for the biggest meal of the day, some for a meal at a specific time, but it depends on where people come from:

For example, I (south of UK) will say: breakfast / lunch / dinner / supper,
but my mum (from north of UK) will say: breakfast / dinner / tea / supper.

We also have the job "dinner lady" in the UK (I think "lunch lady" in the US) which refers to a woman who cooks the food or supervisors children in a school at lunch time.

Answer

In Australia, we say breakfast, lunch and dinner (or some people call it tea).  So for us, dinner is only in the evening.

Answer

Dinner is usually used for meal that you eat at evening time. However, according to Cambridge dictionary, dinner is also used for meal we eat at the middle of the day.
Besides, it is also used for occasions at which you serve or you are served with meal at evening time. For example; candlelit dinner.
Thanks

Answer

Hi All,

Thanks to your answers, now i know my friends are right with this words in most times. I've been to cautious to use it.

Answer

Are you sure they're not just in a different timezone?

Answers · 8

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