Prandial

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Connected with or occurring during a meal, particularly the main meal of the day
2. Having to do with eating, dining, or the time spent taking a meal together
3. Describing something associated with dining, such as activities or customs around food

Etymology: The Latin "prandium" meant a late breakfast or lunch, a meal eaten in the middle of the day rather than the first meal of the morning. English took the adjective "prandial" from it, with the Latin-derived "-al" ending that turns nouns into adjectives, so the word means "relating to a meal" in the sense of dining as an activity. Late Latin had its own adjective, "prandialis," which English drew on directly. The noun behind it has a deep and unusual past. Its ancestry is often traced to an ancient reconstructed phrase meaning roughly "first food," built from roots for "first" and "to eat." Yet the Romans applied "prandium" to a meal that came after the morning, so the word's sense shifted considerably from its presumed beginnings. The English adjective preserves the Roman meal rather than the hypothetical first-food sense.