dining hall
dining hall — noun
1. a large room found at schools, colleges, hospitals, and similar places, furnishe
a large room found at schools, colleges, hospitals, and similar places, furnished with tables and chairs for shared mealtimes, with meals typically offered at scheduled times
The students gathered in the dining hall for the evening meal at six o'clock.
collocation: gather in [the] dining hall
Our school dining hall has long wooden tables that seat twenty people each.
Breakfast is served in the dining hall from seven until nine every morning.
The college dining hall offers vegetarian options at every meal throughout the week.
The dining hall was crowded at noon because every class had the same break.
The hospital dining hall stays open until eight in the evening for night-shift workers.
- cafeteria
more common in American English; often implies self-service with a food counter
- canteen
British English term for dining space in a workplace or military base; usually smaller
- refectory
formal term, used especially in older British universities and monasteries
- mess hall
used mainly in military contexts
文法句型
dining hall + verb
in the dining hall
dining hall + serves/offers
用法筆記
This sense covers both the physical room and its function: you can refer to the space itself (e.g. 'a dining hall with high ceilings') or the meal-service operation running inside it (e.g. 'the dining hall serves breakfast from seven'). The same dining hall can be described either way — there is no separate sense for meal service. Attributive nouns or possessive adjectives typically identify the institution (school dining hall, college dining hall, hospital dining hall).