For english learners Do you know the word Breakfast mean breaking your fast(sleep) by eating first meal of the day ?

Yeah, similar idea in Romance languages (French and Spanish at least).

I learned that watching PBSKids when I was young. They would sometimes have little educational clips during commercial breaks, and there was one about Ramadan. It described the meal schedule and said they "break the fast" after sunset. Hearing it like that made it click for me.

Yes, because it is the same way in my native language

The "fast" in breakfast is nothing to do with sleep. Fast means to refrain from eating food / drink for a time. Like Muslims during Ramadan, which started today (1/3/25). The "nap" in kidnap comes from "nab", meaning to snatch/grab something. Some others are "goodbye", "afternoon", "ponytail", "saucepan", "eyeball", "keyboard", "upstairs", "bagpipe", "bedroom", "birthday", "bookshelf", "cowboy", "doughnut", "hedgehog", "iceberg", "jaywalk", "jigsaw", "midnight"... and hundreds more.

When I was younger, I thought it was "a quick break". I was devastated to later find out the word was in fact not yet another glorification of hustle culture 🥲

Goodbye is an interesting one. It was originally shortened from the phrase “God be with you”. But it’s become so common place now that nobody would consider it to have any religion connotations.

yes

This is why I (annoyingly) call the first meal of the day, breakfast. Even at 10 pm

That's what I was taught!

Once you know both words, it's pretty obvious

Pancake is a cake you cook with a pan. Nightmare is more obscure. Mare is an archaic term for an evil spirit. A nightmare is when an evil spirit visits you at night.

As a native English speaker, I've always thought that "fireplace" and "waterfall" sound like extremely stupid words once you think about them 😅

I’ve always thought the etymology of breakfast was apparent from the word itself. “Breakfast” can also mean a meal that ends a religious or dietary fast. E.g., “Where are you going for breakfast after Yom Kippur this year?” At least in my community, it is pronounced “BRAKE-FAST” in this sense (with two stressed syllables) rather than the usual “BRECK-fust.”

I feel like we learned that as a fun fact in English class in like 3rd grade.

A fast doesn't really mean sleep though, a fast is a period of time when you don't eat. So you do fast when you sleep, but you can also fast when you are awake (as some people do for religious reasons for example).