tiffin
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Etymology: Apparently from English tiffing, present participle of tiff (“to take a small drink, to sip”) (slang).
Inflected forms:
form: tiffins
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: tiffins
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: tiffining
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: tiffined
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: tiffined
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: A (light) midday meal or snack; luncheon.
pos: noun
tags: India
UK
countable
uncountable
examples: He took his tiffin from home and ate the food two hours later in school.
[…] I bought a pine-apple at the same time, which I gave to Sambo. Let's have it for tiffin; very cool and nice this hot weather.
That garden belongs to Manockjee Metta; that day many of us met and had tiffin and supper. At tiffin there were ten of us.
"Bring sahib coffee at six in the morning; breakfast at nine; tiffin at one." / "What's that last one, Moro?" / "We had tiffin at Suez, and it means luncheon," interposed Morris. / "I didn't hear the word; but it is all right, and tiffin it is after this time. Come; are you going down-stairs, fellows?"
Had tiffin at 11.30 a.m. 1½ rations of rice with fried fish. Added frying oil and soup powder. Excellent, both in quantity and quality, but stomach is a bit troublesome. Can't wonder at it really!
Tiffin is an old colonial term. Often thought of as a snack taken with afternoon tea, tiffin is actually a light lunch eaten at midday. Indian colonial writings make numerous references to tiffin. […] Tiffin was not always the lightest of meals. In a 1904 account, Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore, an American travel writer and photographer, described the overindulgent culinary order of the day in colonial Calcutta: "The solid two-o'clock tiffin, following the heavy ten-o'clock breakfast, is so soon succeeded by the four-o'clock tea and the eight-o'clock dinner, that it is a surprise that any one survives the constant feasting which fills Anglo-Indian life."
Tiffin work started with Raghunath Medge's father, who worked first of all at Bombay Churchgate station. When the British Raj was in power, then there was work at Churchgate. The people who worked at Girni had tiffin delivered to them. […] People went out early in the morning and tiffin was delivered later.
gloss: A box or container used to carry a tiffin.
pos: noun
tags: India
UK
countable
uncountable
examples: "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.
gloss: A cake-like confection composed of crushed biscuits, sugar, syrup, raisins, cherries and cocoa powder, often covered with a layer of melted chocolate.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: To eat a (light) midday meal or snack.
pos: verb
tags: India
UK
intransitive
examples: 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.
Pack had been tiffining by himself to the right of the arch, and had heard everything.
Slept, tiffined, and read in heat of the day. At 4 p.m. hunted again, and finished the evening with a jolly good dinner.
And so I lay at Arashiyama which is near Kyoto, in a yellow straw tea-house overlooking the beautiful river of which I have written, my mouth full of fried mountain trout and my soul soaking in a great calm. […] The lady of the tea-house insisted upon screening us off from the other pleasure-parties who were tiffining in the same verandah, and we were left alone with the trout.
From the diary it would appear that the main activities were shooting, walking, and alternating meals on each other's boat. "We dined with them. They tiffined with us." "Tiffined with them. They dined with us."
Translations: