a square meal

square meal

A wholesome, filling, and nutritious meal. What I really need is a hot shower, a square meal, and a full night's sleep. There's a lot of debate at the moment about whether three square meals is better than a lot of smaller meals throughout the day.See also: meal, square

a square meal

A square meal is a large, healthy meal that makes you feel you have eaten enough. The troops were tired and hadn't had a square meal for five days. Do you survive on yogurt at lunchtime while your partner wants a square meal? Note: On sailing ships in the past, sailors ate off square wooden plates. See also: meal, square

a square ˈmeal

a large and satisfying meal: The children get three square meals a day.See also: meal, square

square meal, a

A substantial and nourishing repast. A mid-nineteenth-century Americanism, the term appears in humorist Stephen Leacock’s Literary Lapses (1910): “Any two meals at a boarding-house are together less than two square meals.”See also: square