Prandial

I got excited the day I saw prandial on the calendar page for The American Heritage Dictionary Word-a-Day calendar. I've heard of postprandial in the sense of postprandial conversation, which refers to after-meal discussions, but and imagined that pre-prandial would work also, but didn't think out the definition of the root word. The American Heritage Dictionary Word a Day calendar defines prandial as "of or relating to a meal. [From Latin prandium, late breakfast.]" (It also lists prandially as an adverb form.)

Now, checking up on this word led to an interesting vocabulary adventure. I started glancing in There's a Word for It! by Charles Harrington Elster. In it he lists post-prandial as after-dinner, rather than after just any meal. The Lexicon by William F. Buckley Jr (the father, btw, of Christopher Buckley) lists post-prandial as after a meal, especially dinner. CHE also gives us cenatory (pertaining to dinner or supper) and jentacular (pertaining to breakfast).

Another fun find: just above postprandial in QPB Dictionary of Difficult Words (edited by John Ayto) are the words postcenal (defined as post-prandial) and postcibal (after a meal). Right away I'm guessing the cen in postcenal and cenatory are related. For cenatory, Answers.com gives the following origin: [L. cenatorius, fr. cenare to dine, sup, fr. cena, coena, dinner, supper.] The OED online (thanks, UB!) lists:

post-cenal adj. (also post-cænal, post-coenal) [<

POST- prefix + classical Latin cna, also caena, in post-classical Latin also coena dinner (see CENE n.) + -AL suffix¹] occurring or undertaken after a meal, esp. after dinner.

but nothing for postcibal or cibal. A Google search of postcibal finds hits on many medical websites, from which I infer that the term is a medical term, or used in medical descriptions of symptoms or diagnoses, such as postcibal hyperglycemic.

I wonder—is there a specific word referring to lunchtime? Not according to Douglas Adams. ("Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.")

[Ed. note--since prandial comes from the Latin "late breakfast", perhaps it could be assigned to lunches]