fast food

Noun

fast food (usually uncountable, plural fast foods)

1. (usually) Restaurant food that is served quickly, often standardized and pre-prepared.

   Synonyms:

   short order

2. (usually) A type of food that is quickly made, but of low nutritional value; junk food.
   • In the course of the last decade, it has become the dominant “fast-food” franchise in America—and it is now spreading abroad, carrying its gospel of machine technology wedded to cheap hamburgers wherever it can find a mouth-hold, and converting anyone it can to the glories of junk food1980, Arthur Asa Berger, Television As An instrument of Terror, page 189
   • Everyone loves some junk food some of the time. That's why there are more than 140,000 fast food restaurants in the U.S.1986, “JUNK. OR. GEMS?”, in 1000s of free things: or almost free, page 131

   Synonyms:

   junk food

3. (usually) Anything standardized, quickly available, and inexpensive, often, of low value.
   • The best evidence is that Sandals, the fast-food king of island weddings, now markets the term weddingmoons.2002 March 29, “Going Offshore”, in Time
   • Guys are good for two things: 1) help when you need to move something heavy, and 2) fast-food sex where you always know what's on the menu and, with a little work, you can supersize it2007, Margo Candela, Life over easy