square meal
square meal
A wholesome, filling, and nutritious meal. What I really need is a hot shower, a square meal, and a full night's sleep. There's a lot of debate at the moment about whether three square meals is better than a lot of smaller meals throughout the day.
See also: meal, square
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
square meal, a
A substantial or complete meal, as in These airlines never feed you; I haven't had a square meal on one yet. [Mid-1800s]
See also: square
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
a square meal
A square meal is a large, healthy meal that makes you feel you have eaten enough. The troops were tired and hadn't had a square meal for five days. Do you survive on yogurt at lunchtime while your partner wants a square meal? Note: On sailing ships in the past, sailors ate off square wooden plates.
See also: meal, square
Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed.
a square ˈmeal
a large and satisfying meal: The children get three square meals a day.See also: meal, square
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary
square (meal)
n. a good and nutritious meal. (Always with quantifier when square is used without meal.) I need three squares a day—at least. The old soak looks like he could use a square meal.
See also: meal, square
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions
square meal, a
A substantial and nourishing repast. A mid-nineteenth-century Americanism, the term appears in humorist Stephen Leacock’s Literary Lapses (1910): “Any two meals at a boarding-house are together less than two square meals.”
See also: square
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer
- a square meal
- square meal, a
- make a meal (out) of (something)
- make a meal of
- make a meal of something
- make a meal of/out of something
- table talk
- serve (something) for (something or some reason)
- serve for
- Bag it!