Etymology From Middle English brekefast, brekefaste, equivalent to break + fast (literally, "to end the nightly fast"), likely a variant of Old English fæstenbryċe, (literally, "fast-breach"). Cognate with Dutch breekvasten (“breakfast”).
1
The first meal of the day, usually eaten in the morning.
You should put more protein in her breakfast so she will grow.
I had an early dinner because the breakfast in this hostel is superb.
3 more examples
A ſorry Breakfaſt for my Lord Protector.1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iv], page 125, column 2:
His servant then flew like lightning and returned with a fine breakfast of wine and milk, and beautiful white bread and fruits, and such other things as little boys are fond of.1828, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, volume I, London: William Harrison Ainsworth, page 293:
Peter, after the manner of man at the breakfast table, had allowed half his kedgeree to get cold and was sniggering over a letter. Sophia looked at him sharply. The only letter she had received was from her mother. Sophia’s mother was not a humourist.1921, Ben Travers, A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC:
2
Broadly A meal consisting of food normally eaten in the morning, which may typically include eggs, sausages, toast, bacon, etc.
We serve breakfast all day.
3
The celebratory meal served after a wedding (and occasionally after other solemnities e.g. a funeral).
4
A meal eaten after a period of (now often religious) fasting.
Largely obsolete outside religion
The wolves will get a breakfast by my death.1684, John Dryden, “Amaryllis”, in Miscellany Poems:
Etymology From Middle English brekefast, brekefaste, equivalent to break + fast (literally, "to end the nightly fast"), likely a variant of Old English fæstenbryċe, (literally, "fast-breach"). Cognate with Dutch breekvasten (“breakfast”).
1
To eat the morning meal.
May 14, 1689, Matthew Prior, epistle to Fleetwood Shephard Esq. First, sir, I read, and then I breakfast.
“Oh, he set off the moment he had breakfasted![…]”1847 October 16, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter I, in Jane Eyre. An Autobiography. […], volume II, London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], →OCLC, page 12:
1 more example
Fifty years ago, the traveller might breakfast well at home in London, and take nothing more than a cup of coffee at King's Cross.1941 August, C. Hamilton Ellis, “The English Station”, in Railway Magazine, page 356:
2
To serve breakfast to.
By seven-thirty she had breakfasted them, provided each with a packed lunch and Thermoses of coffee and tea1987, Anne McCaffrey, The Lady: A Tale of Ireland, page 269: