Why is the first meal of the day called breakfast?

You are breaking the fast of the night.

Well,I know that if you seperate the words it literally means “to break a fast,” which makes complete sense. I’m not entirely sure about the orgins of the words, but I’d be willing to venture with almost 95% confidence they are Anglo-Saxon. Anglo-Saxon words typically contain one syllable and are clipped, so I therefore make the aforesaid assumption based upon this.

If I found further info., I will edit my comments as pertains to this. More than likely another commentator knows the answer to this one.

Breakfast comes from the two words “break” and “fast” because you have not eaten while sleeping, i.e., you are fasting during that time, and break that fast with the meal.

The root comes from Middle English brekfast : breken, to break; + faste, a fast – from Old Norse fasta, to fast

To break one’s fast in the morning; too eat the first meal in the day.

no im pretty sure its called breakfast because you are breaking a fast. when you go to bed, you cant really eat unless you sleepwalk/sleepeat. so, when you eat in the morning, your breaking your fast from dinner which was probably around 12 hours ago

When you fast, it means you don’t eat. When you break a fast, it means you start eating again. Breakfast is when you break the fast you started the night before.

It’s really break the fast! Anytime you eat after 6hrs of non eating is breakfast.

It refers back to the actuality that all human beings is breaking their nightlong speedy whilst they consume the 1st meal of the day. In different words, “speedy” refers to no longer velocity yet to refraining from nutrition, as in “fasting.”

You do not eat when you sleep there for your body is fasting. When you eat your first meal you break the fast.

You are breaking your nighttime fast.

It came from a while ago. When people fasted for religion. They would not eat for a whole day, and did not eat until the following morning, hence breaking their fast.