dinner pail
noun dated, chiefly US
A pail in which a labourer’s or schoolchild’s dinner is carried and kept warm.My back would be hurting by dinner time at school, so I'd find some reason to carry my dinner pail home then and to stay through the afternoon to help Daddy with something....
- Mr. Leonard picked up Dad's dinner pail and threw it into the sand pit where the bailer was dumped.
- Then they got their dinner pails and trudged to school, singing to wake up the fortunate people that got to sleep past dawn and the unfortunate people who had slept late.
Phrases
hand in one's dinner pail