Tiffin
name, noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A (light) midday meal or snack; luncheon. British, India, countable, uncountable
"He took his tiffin from home and ate the food two hours later in school."
- 2 a midday meal wordnet
- 3 A box or container used to carry a tiffin. British, India, countable, uncountable
""Young memsahib, an empty tiffin box costs ten rupees in the market. With the food, it's worth maybe fifteen rupees. Do you think I could retire after I steal it?" the man said. “I'm getting late. Do you want your husband to get his lunch or not? That last one's for him, isn't it?" He jerked his chin at the tiffin Anahita was still hugging."
- 4 A cake-like confection composed of crushed biscuits, sugar, syrup, raisins, cherries and cocoa powder, often covered with a layer of melted chocolate. countable, uncountable
- 1 To eat a (light) midday meal or snack. British, India, intransitive
"Do you know that he tiffins with her three times a week, and every night, after leaving here, he finishes the evening in her society, sitting in the veranda and smoking cigarettes till all hours."
- 1 A surname. countable, uncountable
- 2 A small city in Johnson County, Iowa, United States. countable, uncountable
- 3 An unincorporated community in St. Clair County, Missouri, United States. countable, uncountable
- 4 A city, the county seat of Seneca County, Ohio, United States. countable, uncountable
Example
More examples"He took his tiffin from home and ate the food two hours later in school."
Etymology
Apparently from English tiffing, present participle of tiff (“to take a small drink, to sip”) (slang).
Related phrases
More for "tiffin"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.