To think that you’re evening meal is called ‘tea’ not ‘dinner’?!

[Biscoffaddict]

I see so many posters on here referring to their evening mea, as ‘dinner’, but in real life I’ve never met anyone who does this and it’s always ‘tea’. It always has been tea. My parents call it tea, my grandparents called it tea, my friends call it tea, my work colleagues call it tea etc. ‘Dinner’ is the meal you have in the middle of the day and that’s why school dinner ladies, are called dinner ladies!

I don’t know but I find it quite irrationally annoying! Surely I’m not alone?!

Dinner is the main hot meal of the day so if we have it in the evening and sandwiches / cold lunch then it is lunch and dinner.

If the hot main meal is at lunch time like Christmas Dinner or Sunday roast then I’d say lunch and tea would be the lighter / cold meal in the evening.

I would find it very odd to refer to a sandwich as dinner. Hence packed lunch and school dinners.

I mean if I google tea. Tea leafs and types of tea drinks come up not restaurants. Dinner brings up restaurants and food instantly so I’m sticking with google.

Pretty sure the first response to tea in the dictionary is drink too not food.

Dinner if it's a hot meal, tea if it's similar to lunch, ie sandwiches or soup and a roll

I also say Sunday dinner, not Sunday lunch and we would have it about 2pm and have a light tea later on.

1. Breakfast - morning
2. Lunch - midday
3. Dinner - evening

Tea is a hot drink I have in the mornings.

This comes up on mumsnet all the time.

In my view, lunch and tea are cold. Dinner is a hot meal either midday or evening.

:)

It's not just regional though. My husband and I come from the South West I say dinner. He says tea.
IMO tea is a drink.

Globally tea is known to be a drink. Within the UK, tea is known by millions to also be a meal.

We all know this.

Except for sunday lunch - which is a roast dinner

@WagnerTheWehrWolf

So when you have your 1pm dinner is this always a cooked dish? Or is it a sandwich and a cup of tea but just called dinner?

Yeah- can any of the dinner at 12pm people answer this for us please?

Dinner is used interchangeably for lunch / evening meal in my house. It's the large hot meal, which could be either. So we might have roast dinner at lunchtime, or steak and chips for dinner in the evening. Supper is a 4th sneaky meal that happens after the evening meal. Usually at Christmas

Lunch at midday then dinner in the evening.

Unless it's cold, like sandwiches, then it's tea.

But when you watch Coronation Street for example, set in Manchester, they also say tea

Try Eastenders.

Yes YABU to find it irrationally annoying

I call it teatime at say 5pm or 6pm,if I was just making something small, like poached egg on toast etc, but if I made a cooked bigger meal at midday,it would be called dinner. But in reverse if poached egg was eaten at lunch time, then the bigger meal later would be dinner. If I just had a sandwich at midday, that would be a quickie lunch.
Strange Cheshire person here !

Those of you who call the meal in the middle of the day “dinner”, what do you call the evening meal if you go out to a restaurant ?

We have breakfast, lunch and tea, but if I go out to eat in the evening (those were the days!), then it’s dinner.

I'm in the NE, I use lunch/dinner and dinner/tea interchangeably, no one has ever been confused as most people I know are intelligent enough to figure it out, lol

It's regional, of course because the NE generally uses dinner and tea it is seen as a class thing because every single person in the NE is considered as working class 🙄

I'm actually eating my tea right now. Served any time between 5 and 5:30 👍

Supper is a snack before bed.

Breakfast (straight after we wake up)
Lunch (about midday-1)
Dinner (6/7pm)

Breakfast
Second breakfast
Elevenses
Brunch
Lunch
Afternoon tea
High tea
Dinner
Supper.

And random snacks, obvs.

From extensive research reading The Famous Five/The Hobbit/Jilly Cooper I conclude that 'tea', as the OP uses it, is probably derived from 'High tea', which, as we all know, includes cream from the farmer's own cows, bags of lettuce, heaps of tomatoes and, probably, a few homemade meaty pies.
I'd make a further wild guess and say that 'afternoon tea' would be served at around 4pm, and would include dainty sandwiches and dinky little cakes.
Supper should be Welsh Rarebit (rabbit?) or Gentleman's relish (ooer) on toast.

@bagamoyo1
I would say that we are going out for tea

In Ireland, always 'dinner'. (Evening meal)

Tea might be sandwiches & a cuppa that you have eg on a Saturday late afternoon.

I really fancy a (cup of) tea now. I think I'll put the kettle on while I cook dinner. (Salmon parcels, roasted new potatoes and some kind of veg - probably corn on the cob if anyone is interested.)

@Biscoffaddict

I see so many posters on here referring to their evening mea, as ‘dinner’, but in real life I’ve never met anyone who does this and it’s always ‘tea’. It always has been tea. My parents call it tea, my grandparents called it tea, my friends call it tea, my work colleagues call it tea etc. ‘Dinner’ is the meal you have in the middle of the day and that’s why school dinner ladies, are called dinner ladies!

I don’t know but I find it quite irrationally annoying! Surely I’m not alone?!

Tea

If you book a restaurant in the evening you do not ask the staff if you can have a table for two for tea at 8pm.