Supper or dinner?

[HappyHen17]

My husband works for a very elite family and they refer to their evening meal as supper. We’ve always bickered at home between breakfast, lunch and dinner or breakfast, dinner and teas; so where does supper come in?! The only friends I know who use supper are people who have distanced themselves entirely from their roots and embraced their new found upper middle class status, they previously used one of the above three to distinguish meals. So AIBU to ask what decides if it’s tea, dinner or supper-is it class AIBU or location YANBU?

I use dinner and supper interchangeably.

It is breakfast, then dinner then tea! Supper is a snack you have if you are a bit peckish in the evening, a biscuit or some toast.

Dinner is the main meal of the day, no matter what time of day it is eaten. The rest of the meals are labelled according to time of day but can be superseded by dinner at any time.

Breakfast
Morning coffee (elevenses)
Luncheon
Afternoon tea
High tea
Supper

One can combine these or supersede them by adding in 'dinner' wherever you like.

Thus a heavy meal, often a social gathering, at 2pm on Sunday can be described as Sunday dinner or Sunday lunch. ( see also Christmas dinner).

Where both adults in a household are working it may be more usual to have the main meal in the evening, and call it Dinner. However if it is an evening meal it could be a high tea, especially if you hit the biscuit barrel or cheese plate later in the evening (supper).

If you have tea at about 5 then you have supper later.
Children have nursery tea then supper.
Coal miners or anyone ravenous from a physical days work had high tea then supper.
Afternoon tea was generally a snack and was not a meal as such, so one still has dinner later.
Afternoon tea as served in restaurants for £30 a pop are large enough to preclude an additional main meal and could then technically be described as dinner.

Its tea

For me, supper is a small meal eaten in the evening if you become very hungry after dinner. It's small, quick and fairly simple. Or if you've had an early dinner, mid afternoon, you might have supper.

Same here.

I think the elite family are either being a bit pretentious (shocker, right?) or its just personal preference for them.

The aristocracy don't dress for supper, do they?
No, they dress for dinner.

But then maybe this elite family call the evening meal dinner only if they're dressing for it and if not then it's a relaxed family supper?

Sigh. I really don't know how I can cope not knowing the answers to this classist minefield.
Someone send for etiquette expert!!

I have no idea why but ‘supper’ makes me think of a shepherd eating a hunk of cheese with bread in a cabin. It doesn’t sound like a full meal. More something you’d cobble together at night if you were still hungry.

When I lived in the north, we had dinner in the afternoon and tea as the main evening meal. Now I’m in the south, it’s lunch then dinner. So, for me, it’s a location thing rather than a class thing. If someone offered me supper I’d assume I was getting something tiny like milk and a banana, not that they were posh and giving me a full evening meal.

(Working class in Kent)
Breakfast
Lunch
Dinner
Supper
Supper is a light meal/snack eaten between dinner time and bed time.
Tea is not a meal, just a beverage.

Breakfast AM
Dinner 12-2pm
Tea 5-7pm
Supper is cereal or toast before bed if you're still hungry

Yes! 😂

Working class in east end of London, Nan used to make supper about 9.30, cocoa, bread, cheese and celery.

Used to be breakfast, dinner and tea, it was always school dinners not school lunches.

Now it's breakfast, lunch and then dinner/tea interchangeably.

Breakfast
Lunch
Tea or dinner depending on the time; tea would be closer to 6pm, dinner closer to/later than 8pm (even if the food was the same).

I can't bear the other word to the extent I can't bring myself to use it at all. Affected, twee and thoroughly nauseating in all situations outwith a Scottish chipper.

Northern lower middle class, from working class parents.

Breakfast
Brunch (more substantial than breakfast served mid morning and replaces breakfast and lunch)
Lunch (usually cold but would include soup or jacket potato, can be packed lunch or picnic lunch but if hot main meal then Roast Dinner, Christmas Dinner, School Dinner etc)
Tea (main meal served at home, but would say dinner party if formal/fancy or just come round for your tea if not)
Supper (usually after 9pm and a lighter meal - cereal, crackers, toast etc)
Midnight snack (usually after 11pm and a night out - similar to supper but could also be more substantial)

Afternoon tea - never eaten at home but in cafes and hotels and must include a scone (you can pronounce this how you like, that’s a whole different thread!)

The only supper I eat would be a fish supper or a sausage supper. Which would be at dinner time. Although my mum would say it's tea time.

Breakfast.
Lunch.
Supper.

Middle class Scotland. Hadn't realised it was quite such a cringey word!