Meanings
plural dinner ladies
- UKinformalA woman employed to serve food in a school or work canteen.
Ten years to the month after Jamie Oliver began his school food revolution – with the help of a formidable dinner lady called Nora Sands at Kidbrooke school in south London – a small inner-city primary on the other side of the Thames is doing its best to give it a new lease of life.
2015 April 4, Sally Weale, “The new dinner lady: 10 years on, can an Ottolenghi chef prove Jamie Oliver's revolution wasn't a flash in the pan?”, in The GuardianSynonyms: lunch lady, school dinner lady
Synonyms & antonyms
nounA woman employed to serve food in a school or work canteen.
Origin
Translations
Chinese Mandarin 食堂阿姨
- 食堂阿姨 (shítáng āyí)woman employed to serve food
Portuguese merendeira
- merendeirawoman employed to serve food
Swedish mattant
- mattantwoman employed to serve food
Cite this entry
dinner lady. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dinner%20lady
“dinner lady.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dinner%20lady. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “dinner lady,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dinner%20lady.
Source: dinner lady on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.