Is there a difference between supper and dinner?

Supper is used especially when the meal is an informal one eaten at home, while dinner tends to be the term chosen when the meal is more formal. In some dialects and especially in British English, supper can also refer to a light meal or snack that is eaten late in the evening.

What do you call your evening meal?

But sections of the upper and upper-middle classes use supper to mean the informal evening meal with family or close friends, taken around the kitchen table, with dinner reserved for formal entertaining or dining out.

What is the difference between lunch dinner supper and tea?

Lunch is in the middle of the day, supper is in the evening. Now of course this is a drink, like tea and coffee, but it can also be a light evening meal. I think this word is often used in families, particularly with their children. “It’s tea time”, “It’s time for tea!” This means their small evening meal.

Is the evening meal dinner or tea?

“High” tea It combined snacks and a hearty meal and was usually served at about 6pm. This eventually evolved into the lower classes calling their midday meal “dinner” and their evening meal “tea”, while the upper classes called their midday meal “lunch” and referred to the evening meal as “dinner”.

Is supper a Midwestern term?

Regionally it appeared that supper was used most in the Midwest and the South. Supper is more specifically a lighter evening meal. Rooted in the word ‘to sup,’ it comes from farming traditions.

Who calls the evening meal tea?

The results revealed that “dinner” was the most popular word, with 57 per cent of the participants choosing it over the others. Just over a third of the participants preferred the use of the word “tea”, while only five per cent referred to the meal as “supper”.

Why is evening meal called tea?

Dinner always signified the main meal of the day. When we were an agricultural nation, “dinner” was taken around midday by the vast majority of the nation to provide energy for the manual labour in the afternoon, and a lighter “tea” (a cup of tea and sandwiches/cake) was taken early evening.

Is calling dinner tea a Northern thing?

As may be expected, “dinner” was the overwhelmingly preferred term used in the South, while those in the North preferred to say “tea”.

Do you call your evening meal tea or supper?

What do you call your evening meal: dinner, tea or supper? New research by removals firm Kiwimovers (yes really) found that just over half of people call it tea. Contrary to popular belief, though, that term isn’t confined to the north of England. Over a third call it dinner, while just 5\% call it supper, and the rest aren’t all that bothered.

What is the difference between dinner and supper?

Referring to your midday meal as dinner is considered a “working-class hallmark”. Supper: If you call your informal, family evening meal ‘supper’ (pronounced ‘suppah’), you are probably upper-middle or upper class. ‘Dinner’ for those same people is used for more formal evening meals. God help a foreigner invited to ‘tea’.

What do you call dinner in the middle class?

Referring to your midday meal as dinner is considered a “working-class hallmark”. Supper: If you call your informal, family evening meal ‘supper’ (pronounced ‘suppah’), you are probably upper-middle or upper class. ‘Dinner’ for those same people is used for more formal evening meals.

Is dinner the middle of the day or evening?

Dinner does not imply a time of day and simply references the main meal, or the largest meal, of the day. One can eat dinner at any time, and since there is no time implied (middle of the day or evening), dinner has become the modern catch-all term for the evening meal.