1829 H. D. Best Personal & Lit. Mem. 307 The word lunch is adopted in that ‘glass of fashion’, Almacks, and luncheon is avoided as unsuitable to the polished society there exhibited.

1836 A. Combe Physiol. Digestion ii. iv. 283 We do not experience the same dislike to exertion after a light forenoon lunch.

1841 S. Warren Ten Thousand a-Year I. viii. 256 He happened to mention it at lunch.

1859 J. Cumming Ruth v. 87 Parched corn was her only lunch in the midst of a day of ardour and of sunshine.

1866 A. Trollope Belton Estate III. iv. 92 Lunch was on the table at half-past one.

1880 ‘Mrs. Forrester’ Roy & Viola I. 20 Come to lunch to-morrow at one.

1901 R. D. Evans Sailor's Log vi. 59 Every night during the mid watch a beautiful lunch was served to the officer of the deck.

1936 S.P.E. Tract (Soc. for Pure Eng.) No. XLV. 183 In several..instances a word has been liberated in America from the restrictions that limit its application in England; for example..lunch.

1950 E. A. McCourt Home is Stranger (1951) viii. 124 At midnight the womenfolk hurried out to the hall to prepare lunch.

1951 Good Housek. Home Encycl. 540 Lunch, the midday meal..may cover anything from the sandwich lunch taken by some office and factory workers to the fairly elaborate formal meal given when guests are entertained at a public function or private party.

1960 S. Plath Colossus 20 I open my lunch on a hill of black cypress.

1963 L. Diack Labrador Nurse i. vii. 37 After a ‘lunch’ (i.e. a snack), all hands..would set to work.

1965 J. S. Gunn Terminol. Shearing Industry i. 36 Lunch, a light snack which was taken at the mid-morning or mid-afternoon break... Lunch was food taken at any time away from main meals, even in the evening.

1968 New Society 22 Aug. 265/2 Though the U still have lunch (not dinner) in the middle of the day and U-dogs still have their dinner then, U-children have changed; they no longer have mid-day dinner, in the nursery, but have lunch with their mothers.

1955 Sci. Digest Aug. 33/1 ‘Out to lunch’ refers to someone who, in other years, just wasn't ‘there’—and he is told immediately to ‘Get with it!’

1959 She May 21/2 Out to lunch has nothing to do with social life but implies one is not in the groove.

1966 Toronto Daily Star 16 June 74/2 A girl who would be attracted to Bud's mean streak and bad temper must be a little out to lunch.

1974 Melody Maker 13 July 13/5 I think he's out to lunch. He's blown out—completely.