breakfast

/ˈbɹɛk.fəst//ˈbɹeɪkˌfæst/

breakfast noun: the first meal of the day, usually eaten in the morning.

Image: Burkhard Mücke, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

breakfast (countable and uncountable, plural breakfasts)

The first meal of the day, usually eaten in the morning.
- You should put more protein in her breakfast so she will grow.
- I had an early dinner because the breakfast in this hostel is superb.
(broadly) A meal consisting of food normally eaten in the morning, which may typically include eggs, sausages, toast, bacon, etc.
- We serve breakfast all day.
The celebratory meal served after a wedding (and occasionally after other solemnities e.g. a funeral).
(largely obsolete outside religion) A meal eaten after a period of (now often religious) fasting.
- The wolves will get a breakfast by my death.1684, John Dryden, “Amaryllis”, in Miscellany Poems

Verb

breakfast (third-person singular simple present breakfasts, present participle breakfasting, simple past and past participle breakfasted)

(intransitive) To eat the morning meal.
- May 14, 1689, Matthew Prior, epistle to Fleetwood Shephard Esq.
  First, sir, I read, and then I breakfast.
- “Oh, he set off the moment he had breakfasted![…]”1847 October 16, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter I, in Jane Eyre. […], volume II, London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], →OCLC, page 12
(transitive) To serve breakfast to.
- By seven-thirty she had breakfasted them, provided each with a packed lunch and Thermoses of coffee and tea1987, Anne McCaffrey, The Lady: A Tale of Ireland, page 269

breakfast meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

breakfast in Hindi

first meal of the day: नाश्ता nāśtā, कलेवा kalevā

breakfast in Tamil

first meal of the day: காலையுண்டி kālaiyuṇṭi

breakfast in Marathi

first meal of the day: नाष्टा nāṣṭā
to eat the morning meal: नाष्टा करणे nāṣṭā karṇe

breakfast in Urdu

first meal of the day: ناشْتا nāśtā, ناشْتَہ nāśta, کَلیوا kalevā, نَہاری nahārī, چاشْت cāśt

More languagesFewer languages

breakfast in Bengali: নাস্তা nasta, প্রাতরাশ pratoraś, ছোট হাজরি chōṭ hajri, নাশ্তা খাওয়া naśta khaōẇa
breakfast in Telugu: ప్రాతఃకాల prātaḥkāla
breakfast in Malayalam: പ്രഭാത ഭക്ഷണം prabhāta bhakṣaṇaṁ, പ്രാതൽ prātal
breakfast in Kannada: ತಿಂಡಿ tiṇḍi, ನಾಷ್ಟಾ nāṣṭā
breakfast in Punjabi: ਨਿਹਾਰੀ nihārī, ਨਾਸ਼ਤਾ nāśtā
breakfast in Gujarati: નાસ્તો nāsto, નાશ્તો nāśto, શિરામણ śirāmaṇ, નહારી nahārī
breakfast in Odia: ଜଳଖିଆ jaḷakhiā
breakfast in Sanskrit: प्रातराश prātarāśa, कल्यवर्त kalyavarta
breakfast in Nepali: बिहानको खाजा, बिहानको खाना
breakfast in Pashto: سهارنۍ sahāranǝ́y, ټپن ṭapán
breakfast in Tagalog: almusál, agahan
breakfast in Arabic: إِفْطَار ʔifṭār, فَطُور faṭūr, فَطَرَ faṭara
breakfast in Malay: sarapan, bersarapan
breakfast in Indonesian: sarapan, sarap, menyarap
breakfast in Thai: ข้าวเช้า kâao-cháao, อาหารเช้า aa-hǎan-cháao
breakfast in Vietnamese: bữa sáng, ăn sáng
breakfast in Myanmar: နံနက်စာ namnakca, မနက်စာစား ma.nakcaca:

Examples of breakfast in a sentence

A ſorry Breakfaſt for my Lord Protector.1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, &...
His servant then flew like lightning and returned with a fine breakfast of wine and milk, and beautiful white bread and fruits, and such other things as little boys are fond of.1828, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, volume I, London: William Harrison Ainsworth, page 293:
Peter, after the manner of man at the breakfast table, had allowed half his kedgeree to get cold and was sniggering over a letter.1921, Ben Travers, A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC:
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:

All 40 example sentences with breakfast

Synonyms of breakfast

break one's fast

Forms of breakfast

Noun
plural	breakfasts
Verb
third-person singular present	breakfasts
present participle	breakfasting
past participle	breakfasted
past	breakfasted

Plural of breakfast: breakfasts

Origin of breakfast

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”).

Words formed from breakfast

Questions about breakfast

What does breakfast mean?: Breakfast means the first meal of the day, usually eaten in the morning.
What is breakfast in Hindi?: Breakfast in Hindi is नाश्ता (nāśtā), कलेवा (kalevā). See Breakfast meaning in Hindi.
How do you use breakfast in a sentence?: A ſorry Breakfaſt for my Lord Protector.
What part of speech is breakfast?: Breakfast can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce breakfast?: Breakfast is pronounced /ˈbɹɛk.fəst/.
What is the plural of breakfast?: The plural of breakfast is breakfasts.

Words near breakfast in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: breakfast (page history and authors); ਨਾਸ਼ਤਾ (Punjabi) (page history and authors); ଜଳଖିଆ (Odia) (page history and authors); breakfast (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-breakfast.ogg, En-uk-breakfast.ogg.

Cite this entry: “breakfast.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/breakfast. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.