TV dinner

noun

1. a quick-frozen meal, typically consisting of meat, potato, and a vegetable, packaged in a tray for heating before serving.

Word History and Origins

Origin of TV dinner¹

First recorded in 1950–55

Example Sentences

Some exercised regularly, but some never had; some stuck to a Mediterranean diet, others subsisted off TV dinners; and a few of them still smoked cigarettes.

From Seattle Times

After they have a passive-aggressive fight about the groceries and share a silent, side-by-side TV dinner, Joshua goes upstairs for a shower.

From New York Times

Then one day, he started picking up only TV dinners and a bowl of precut fruit.

From Seattle Times

Although Swanson wasn’t the first company to create compartmentalized aluminum tray dinners, in a “stroke of marketing genius,” Swanson coined the phrase “TV dinner,” Shapiro said.

From Seattle Times

Like foil-tray frozen meals, which were used by airlines before Swanson branded them as “TV dinners,” Twitter was not initially invented to be an adjunct to the tube.

From New York Times