Nuncheon
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A drink or light snack taken in the afternoon; a refreshment between meals. archaic, countable, dialectal, uncountable
"They used to break their fast, and nonchion [translating collation] between meals, and all summer-time had men that sold snowe up and down the streets, wherewith they refreshed their wines, of whom some were so daintie that all winter long they used to put snow into their wine, not deeming it cold enough. (I.49)"
Example
More examples"They used to break their fast, and nonchion [translating collation] between meals, and all summer-time had men that sold snowe up and down the streets, wherewith they refreshed their wines, of whom some were so daintie that all winter long they used to put snow into their wine, not deeming it cold enough. (I.49)"
Etymology
From Middle English nonshench, noneschench, nonechenche (“slight refreshment, usually taken in the afternoon”), from none (“noon”) + shench, schenche (“draught, cup”), equivalent to noon + shink (“to pour out, serve”). More at shink, skink.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.