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Glite Dictionary
breakfast in bed

breakfast in bed

17 1.5
A meal eaten in bed, usually in the morning
  • noun
translation icon : desayuno en la cama
  • I'd like to bring you breakfast in bed.
  • serve breakfast in bed
  • bring breakfast in bed
  • make breakfast in bed

I hope all you moms out there enjoyed breakfast in bed because today it's back to a granola bar in the car.

Examples

  • The Saturday morning she forgot to wake him for a soccer game, the time he had spilled the tray bearing her Mother's Day breakfast in bed, and she snapped at him, as if he weren't heartbroken and embarrassed enough.

    Fiction book (1999)

  • Alfie's just brought me some breakfast in bed, some orange juice, my favorite, which is bagels, toasted bagels with Nutella and some fruit and yogurt.

  • Your mom used to make my dad breakfast in bed.

    Growth (2010)

  • Every morning, we'll have breakfast in bed.

    One, Two, Three (1961)

  • The next morning, she made me breakfast in bed.

    Fiction book (1992)

  • Bringing your partner breakfast in bed is a perfect surprise that will help keep the spark alive in your relationship.

    Blog text (23)

  • Why don't you have breakfast in bed?

    Deadrise (2011)

  • When's the last time you gave your wife breakfast in bed?

    Meet the Fockers (2004)

  • The next morning, Stuart wakes Palmyra up with breakfast in bed: French toast with powdered sugar and syrup.

    Fiction book (1995)

  • I love it when you surprise me with breakfast in bed on weekends.

Surface Forms

breakfast in bed singular
breakfasts in bed plural

Morphology

breakfast + in + bed

The meaning 'a meal served and eaten while a person remains in bed' is directly and literally built from the constituents 'breakfast' + 'in' + 'bed'; a B1 learner who knows those words will readily infer this. The noun + preposition + noun composition is cross-linguistically common (e.g., Spanish 'desayuno en la cama'), so the phrase is immediately predictable and transparent to learners.

Etymology

Breakfast in bed comes from the image of someone staying in bed while a tray of breakfast is brought to them as a special treat. That's why the phrase means a 'meal served and eaten while you stay in bed'.