the.com/supper
Dinner's humble cousin — smaller plate, bigger feelings, usually eaten closer to the TV.
means The evening meal, especially a lighter or more casual one eaten at the end of the day.
from Traces back to the Old French 'soper' (to sup, to eat the evening meal), related to 'soupe' — because the original evening meal was often just that: a bowl of soup or broth sipped before bed. It entered English in the medieval period and settled in as the humble, informal counterpart to the grander 'dinner.'
- origin
- from French souper, literally to sip soup
- class marker
- working-class homes call the evening meal supper, not dinner
- the last one
- as in Last Supper, so technically theology's most famous meal
- regional split
- in parts of the US and UK, supper just means a light snack