The answer has changed over time as the ways people earn their living have changed. Up until the mid-1800s, dinner referred to a midday meal, while supper served as a light evening meal for those needing additional nutrition after a hard day’s work.
When did supper start being called dinner?
“[In the 18th and early 19th centuries,] Americans regularly ate a light supper as their evening meal because they were eating dinner—the biggest meal of the day—around noon,” food historian Helen Zoe Veit told NPR.
Why do old people call dinner supper?
Who says supper instead of dinner?
Regionally it appeared that supper was used most in the Midwest and the South. Another of my friends provided this bit of background, “Dinner is considered to be the ‘main’ or largest meal of the day, whether it takes place at noon or in the evening. Supper is more specifically a lighter evening meal.
