air sandwich

8.7

A sandwich with almost no filling used as a joke for very little food

noun

Informal

: sándwich de aire

After checking the fridge, he realized dinner would be an air sandwich again.

Examples

I was so broke that all I could afford for lunch was an air sandwich.
Look at my air sandwich!
She laughed as she served her friend an air sandwich on an empty plate.
I made an air sandwich for lunch.
After realizing he forgot to buy ingredients, he jokingly offered me an air sandwich for lunch.
The lunchroom was so empty that all I could find was an air sandwich with just two slices of bread.
When my friends asked what I packed, I laughed and said I brought an air sandwich for today.

Synonyms

sandwich

vsair sandwich

800 1.0

Two slices of bread with food like meat or cheese between them for a meal

refers to almost no filling often used as a joke

Antonyms

heavy meal

1 1.9

A large amount of food that makes you feel very full

How Full

hearty meal

2 1.6

sandwich

800 1.0

air sandwich

Informal

8.7

Surface Forms

air sandwich singular

air sandwiches plural

Morphology

air + sandwich

The meaning 'a sandwich with little or no filling' is directly and transparently built from 'air' (nothing/empty) + 'sandwich' (two pieces of bread with filling). This is a productive, humorous compounding where the intended lack of contents is inferable from the constituents, so a B1 learner who knows both words should correctly deduce the meaning.

Etymology

The phrase air sandwich comes from a funny image: you open two slices of bread and find only air between them. So it now means 'a sandwich with little or no filling' or jokingly 'a meal with almost nothing in it'.