Word.ws English Dictionary

done like a dinner

done like a dinner adjective: totally defeated; completely finished or gone.

Adjective

done like a dinner (not comparable)

  1. (Australia, simile) Totally defeated; completely finished or gone.
    • Already he heard a smothered roar—
      "They're done like a dinner!" quoth Featherstonhaugh.1892 June 11, Barcroft H Boake, “Featherstonhaugh”, in The Bulletin, Sydney, retrieved 22 Jul 2025, page 22

Origin of done like a dinner

In reference to a dinner being "done," that is, finished cooking and ready to be eaten.

Questions about done like a dinner

What does done like a dinner mean?
Done like a dinner means totally defeated; completely finished or gone.
What part of speech is done like a dinner?
Done like a dinner is an adjective.

Words near done like a dinner in the dictionary

  1. done it
  2. done it brown
  3. done it tough
  4. done it up brown
  5. done justice
  6. done like a dinner
  7. done lunch
  8. done more harm than good
  9. done nothing
  10. done numbers
  11. done off

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: done like a dinner (page history and authors). 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:

Cite this entry: “done like a dinner.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/done_like_a_dinner. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.