Brewer's: Luncheon

(Welsh, llonc or llivno, a gulp; llyncu, to swallow at a gulp.) The notion of its derivation from the Spanish once, eleven, is borrowed from the word nuncheon, i.e. nón-mete, a noon repast. Hence Hudibras:

When, laying by their swords and truncheons, They took their breakfasts, or their nuncheons.

Book i. 1. lines 345, 346.

In Letter Book G, folio iv. (27 Edward II.), donations of drink to workmen are called noncchenche. (Riley: Memorials of London.)

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