breakfasting

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The action or process of eating breakfast, the first meal of the day.

   Their leisurely breakfasting on the terrace was interrupted by a sudden downpour.

   Unhurried breakfasting was a luxury she rarely enjoyed on workdays.

   Note

   Here the meal becomes an occasion, something that can be counted and remembered. Susan Bogert Warner's The wide, wide world (1853) lists breakfastings alongside "tea drinkings on the lawn" as pleasures of home life. Breakfast names the meal itself, while breakfastings names the times it was shared, which is why the plural sits naturally in such recollections.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of breakfast.

   She was breakfasting in the garden when the phone call came.

   Breakfasting alone gave him a calm hour to read the paper.

   Note

   The -ing form carries both uses of the verb: the everyday intransitive one (they were breakfasting late) and the transitive one, where a host is breakfasting the guests by serving them the morning meal. As a gerund it keeps verb grammar, taking objects and adverbs (breakfasting the crew, breakfasting alone). That is how to tell it apart from the countable noun, which takes adjectives and a plural.

   The inn was breakfasting forty guests every morning that summer.

   We spent the first hour breakfasting the volunteers before the race.

Showing meanings only. Show all 2