[Perh. evolved from LUMP sb.1, on the analogy of the apparent relation between hump and hunch, bump and bunch. Cf. ‘Lounge, a large lump, as of bread or cheese’ (Brockett, N. Country Words, ed. 2, 1829).
It is curious that the word first appears as a rendering of the (at that time) like-sounding Sp. lonja slice of ham. LUNCHEON, commonly believed to be a derivative of lunch, occurs in our quots. 11 years earlier, with its present spelling. In sense 2 lunch was an abbreviation of luncheon, first appearing about 1829, when it was regarded either as a vulgarism or as a fashionable affectation.]
† 1. A piece, a thick piece; a hunch or hunk. Obs.
1591. Percivall, Sp. Dict., Lonja de tocino, a lunch of bacon, frustum, lardi.
1600. Surflet, Country Farm, VII. xxv. 850. He shall take breade and cut it into little lunches [Fr. loppins] into a pan with cheese.
1622. Mabbe, trans. Aleman’s Guzman d’Alf., II. 280. Our Master was well content … that we should roste a good lunch of porke.
1707. J. Stevens, trans. Quevedo’s Com. Wks. (1709), 236. I clapp’d a good Lunch of Bread into my Pocket.
1785. Burns, Holy Fair, xxiii. An’ cheese an’ bread … Was dealt about in lunches.
2. A more colloquial synonym of LUNCHEON sb. 2. (Now the usual word exc. in specially formal use, though many persons still object to it as vulgar.)
1829. [H. Best], Pers. & 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.
1839–41. S. Warren, Ten Thous. a-year, viii. I. 256. He happened to mention it at lunch.
1842. A. Combe, Physiol. Digestion (ed. 4), 266. We do not experience the same dislike to exertion after a light forenoon lunch.
1859. J. Cumming, Ruth, v. 87. Parched corn was her only lunch in the midst of a day of ardour and of sunshine.
1865. Trollope, Belton Est., xxvi. 308. Lunch was on the table at half-past one.
1880. Mrs. Forrester, Roy & V., 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.
3. attrib. and Comb., as lunch-basket, -biscuit, -table, -time; lunch-dinner, a meal that might be called either lunch or dinner, a mid-day dinner.
1878. Sir P. Wallis, in Brighton, Life (1892), 201. I hope the good squire will take a lunch-dinner with me.
1890. ‘R. Boldrewood,’ Col. Reformer (1891), 276. It was on the right side of lunch-time. Ibid., 277. The well-appointed lunch-table.
1892. G. R. Lowndes, Camping Sk., 52. Trout, lunch biscuits, and cake, formed a reasonable lunch.
1901. 19th Cent., Oct., 630. I … snatched a hasty breakfast from my lunch basket.
