Editing Dinner (section)

===Modern===
[[File:Filet de bœuf.jpg|thumb|A [[filet mignon]] dinner with mashed potato, string beans and mushrooms]]
In many modern usages, the term ''dinner'' refers to the evening meal, which is now typically the largest meal of the day in most Western cultures. When this meaning is used, the preceding meals are usually referred to as [[breakfast]], [[lunch]] and perhaps a [[Tea (meal)|tea]].<ref name=mcm/><ref name="perry">{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/aug/03/tea-with-grayson-perry-supper-dinner |title=Tea with Grayson Perry. Or is it dinner, or supper? |newspaper=The Guardian |date=August 2012 |access-date=2013-08-15 |location=London}}</ref> [[Supper]] is now often an alternative term for dinner; originally this was always a later secondary evening meal, after an early dinner.

The divide between different meanings of "dinner" is not cut-and-dried based on either geography or socioeconomic class. The term for the midday meal is most commonly used by working-class people, especially in the English Midlands, North of England and the central belt of Scotland.<ref name=perry/> Even in systems in which dinner is the meal usually eaten at the end of the day, an individual dinner may still refer to a main or more sophisticated meal at any time in the day, such as a [[banquet]], feast, or a special meal eaten on a Sunday or holiday, such as [[Christmas dinner]] or [[Thanksgiving]] dinner. At such a dinner, the people who dine together may be formally dressed and consume food with an array of [[List of eating utensils|utensils]]. These dinners are often divided into three or more courses. [[Appetizer]]s consisting of options such as soup or salad, precede the [[main course]], which is followed by the [[dessert]].

====Dinner times ====
[[File:7-10 p.m. Tip Estes and family eating dinner. The day's work has been finished. Tip Estes has washed up and dinner is served. - DPLA - 48e35acfdd18d78294b55c50a2490c67 (cropped).jpg|thumb|A family at dinner (March 1937)]]

=====United States=====
Dinner time in the United States peaks at 6:19&nbsp;p.m., according to an [[American Time Use Survey]] analysis, with most households eating dinner between 5:07&nbsp;p.m. and 8:19&nbsp;p.m. According to the data from 2018 to 2022, the states that ate the earliest were Pennsylvania (5:37&nbsp;p.m. peak) and Maine (5:40&nbsp;p.m. peak), while the states that ate the latest were Texas and Mississippi (both a 7:02&nbsp;p.m. peak) and Washington, D.C., which ate at 7:10&nbsp;p.m. peak.<ref>{{cite news |last=Yau |first=Nathan |url=https://flowingdata.com/2023/07/25/when-is-dinner-by-state/ |title=When is Dinner, By State |work=FlowingData |date=2023-07-24 |access-date=2023-07-26 }}</ref>

=====United Kingdom=====
A survey by [[Orlando Wines#Jacob.27s Creek|Jacob's Creek]], an Australian winemaker, found the average evening meal time in the U.K. to be 7:47pm.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.standard.co.uk/news/average-dinner-time-is-now-747pm-as-work-hours-eat-into-our-meal-times-6648248.html |title=Average dinner time is now 7:47 pm as work hours eat into our meal times |newspaper=Evening Standard |date=3 October 2007}}</ref>