fast food

plural fast foods · alternative rare fast-food · alternative fastfood

1. uncountableusuallyRestaurant food that is served quickly, often standardized and pre-prepared.

   Synonyms: short order

2. uncountableusuallyA type of food that is quickly made, but of low nutritional value; junk food.

   Everyone loves some junk food some of the time. That's why there are more than 140,000 fast food restaurants in the U.S.

   1986, “JUNK. OR. GEMS?”, in 1000s of free things: or almost free, page 131

   4 more examples

   In the course of the last decade, it has become the dominant “fast-food” franchise in America—and it is now spreading abroad, carrying its gospel of machine technology wedded to cheap hamburgers wherever it can find a mouth-hold, and converting anyone it can to the glories of junk food

   1980, Arthur Asa Berger, Television As An instrument of Terror, page 189

   In high schools with open campuses, students leave at lunchtime to buy fast food elsewhere. Since leaving school is unsafe, schools are opting to serve less nutritious foods so the students stay on campus. For example, many schools have invited junk food franchises into their cafeterias, including Subway, Taco Bell, and Domino's.

   1999, Carol Silverman Saunders, Safe at School: Awareness and Action for Parents of Kids Grades K-12

   Disney even chose to stop licensing its film characters for McDonald’s Happy Meals, citing the link between fast food and childhood obesity.

   2012 June 6, Dawn C. Chmielewski, “Disney bans junk-food advertising on programs for children”, in Los Angeles Times

   Junk food companies spent billions of advertising dollars in 2017 targeting black and Hispanic kids, a new study has revealed. / Television ads for fast food, sugary drinks and fatty or salty snacks are almost exclusively targeted to minority youth, the report, supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, found.

   2019 January 15, Lauren Tousignant, “Junk food ads overwhelmingly target black, Hispanic kids”, in New York Post

   Synonyms: junk food

3. uncountableusuallyAnything standardized, quickly available, and inexpensive, often, of low value.

   Outside, the drive-in crowd is heading back into the Sturm und Drang of city traffic and a fast-food world

   2008 August 19, Carmen K. Sisson, “A Georgia church tries drive-in worship”, in Christian Science Monitor, page 25

   2 more examples

   The best evidence is that Sandals, the fast-food king of island weddings, now markets the term weddingmoons.

   2002 March 29, “Going Offshore”, in Time

   Guys are good for two things: 1) help when you need to move something heavy, and 2) fast-food sex where you always know what's on the menu and, with a little work, you can supersize it

   2007, Margo Candela, Life over easy

alternative rare fast-food · alternative fastfood

1. not comparableStandardized, quickly available, and inexpensive, often, of low value.

   Outside, the drive-in crowd is heading back into the Sturm und Drang of city traffic and a fast-food world

   2008 August 19, Carmen K. Sisson, “A Georgia church tries drive-in worship”, in Christian Science Monitor, page 25

   2 more examples

   The best evidence is that Sandals, the fast-food king of island weddings, now markets the term weddingmoons.

   2002 March 29, “Going Offshore”, in Time

   Guys are good for two things: 1) help when you need to move something heavy, and 2) fast-food sex where you always know what's on the menu and, with a little work, you can supersize it

   2007, Margo Candela, Life over easy