elevenses means A short mid-morning break taken around eleven o'clock for a drink or light snack. It carries an Arena rating of 1679, earned across 109 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, elevenses ranks #221 of 17,140 for Most Whimsical Words, #375 of 17,163 for Funniest Words, #1,485 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #1,900 of 17,126 for Most Satisfying to Say.
elevenses is pronounced /ɪˈlɛv(ə)nzɪz/.
Why “elevenses” is a great word
ELEVENSES — [Noun] A short mid-morning break taken around eleven o'clock for a drink or light snack. From dialectal 'elevens' (meaning 'the eleven-o'clock meal'), a double plural of 'eleven' (o'clock); first attested circa 1819. Unlike 'brunch,' which conflates two meals into one substantial feast, or 'afternoon tea,' a formal, ritualized spread, elevenses is a modest, informal intermission. It is the clink of a spoon in a thick mug of milky tea, the solitary digestive biscuit dunked and consumed before it collapses, and the quiet, five-minute vigil by a window—a small, warm island in the long, cool sea of the morning, a necessary punctuation in the sentence of the day.
Etymology
From dialectal elevens (“the eleven-o'clock meal”).
noun
- A short mid-morning break taken around eleven o'clock for a drink or light snack.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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