Meanings
plural lunch pails · alternative lunchpail
- USA lunchbox (food container) shaped more or less like a bucket with a handle.
Synonyms: lunch bucket
- USfigurativelySomeone doing work that needs to be done in an unpretentious, down-to-earth manner; (originally) a blue-collar worker.
1 more example
The work of making this world resemble one that you would prefer to live in is a lunch pail fucking job, day in and day out, where thousands of committed, anonymous, smart and dedicated people bang on closed doors and pick up those that are fallen and grind away on issues till they get a positive result.
2024 February 12, Jon Stewart, The Daily Show
Synonyms & antonyms
nounA lunchbox (food container) shaped more or less like a bucket with a handle.
Origin
Cite this entry
lunch pail. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/lunch%20pail
“lunch pail.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/lunch%20pail. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “lunch pail,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/lunch%20pail.
Source: lunch pail on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.