What is a Tiffin?

Tiffin is an Indian English word for a type of meal.

It refers to a light tea-time meal at about 3 pm, or to a light breakfast consisting of typical tea-time foods. In certain parts of India, it can also refer to the midday luncheon or, in some regions of the Indian subcontinent, a between-meal snack.

When used in place of the word “lunch”, however, it does not necessarily mean a light meal.

In the British Raj, tiffin was used to denote the British custom of afternoon tea, that had been supplanted by the Indian practice of having a light meal at that hour. It is derived from “tiffing”, an English colloquial term meaning to take a little drink.

By 1867 it had become naturalized among Anglo-Indians in northern British India to mean luncheon.