In my rural midwestern US family, “dinner” meant the largest meal of the day, frequently with our extended family, almost always at my grandparents’ house.
“Sunday dinner” was midday, right after church. This was typically pot roast in the cold months and barbecue in the summer.
On weekdays, dinner was in the evening after everyone came home from work and school. We had a big family dinner at least a couple of times per week when I was a kid. (My grandma and sometimes my great aunts would do the cooking. In hindsight, I think my mom and my uncle struggled financially after their respective divorces, and this was the older generation’s way of helping them out.)
Holiday dinners were usually midday, unless someone had to work and we needed to plan around that.
If we were talking about the meal at a specific time of day, we used “lunch” or “supper,” since “dinner” was ambiguous.
In my rural midwestern US family, “dinner” meant the largest meal of the day, frequently with our extended family, almost always at my grandparents’ house.
“Sunday dinner” was midday, right after church. This was typically pot roast in the cold months and barbecue in the summer.
On weekdays, dinner was in the evening after everyone came home from work and school. We had a big family dinner at least a couple of times per week when I was a kid. (My grandma and sometimes my great aunts would do the cooking. In hindsight, I think my mom and my uncle struggled financially after their respective divorces, and this was the older generation’s way of helping them out.)
Holiday dinners were usually midday, unless someone had to work and we needed to plan around that.
If we were talking about the meal at a specific time of day, we used “lunch” or “supper,” since “dinner” was ambiguous.