The meaning and usage of 'Dinner is served'

In the Disney animation 'UP', there's this line starting at 12 seconds into this video:

MUNTZ: Well, dinner is served! Right this way.

(You may want to see the video at least until 22 seconds.)

After saying this line, Muntz leads Carl and Russell into the dining room and up to a large table.

At 22 seconds into the video, they have only some silverware on the dinner table.

In this context, why did Muntz say "dinner is served" when the dinner is not actually served yet? Is this an idiomatic use of "dinner is served"?

Also, what's the part of speech of 'served' here? An adjective or a verb (in the past participle form)?

Solution 1:

Early instances of the servant's declaration, 'Dinner is served'

The expression "Dinner is served," used as a servant's announcement to the host or to the host and guests that everyone should come to the table for a meal, isn't as old a I had expected.The earliest instance I could find is from Charles Macklin, Love a la Mode: A Farce (1759):

Servant. Dinner is served, gentlemen.

Sir Archy Macsarcasm. Come along then, Sir Callaghan—I will bring yee and the lady together after deener, and then we shall see hoo yee will make yeer advances in love,

In this instance, the servant addresses both the host and his guest. A servant addresses only the host with a similar announcement in Arthur Murphy, The Old Maid (1761):

SERVANT. Dinner is served, Sir.

Mr. HARLOW. Very well! come, sister, I give you joy. Let us in to dinner.

In one slightly earlier instance, a person uses "Dinner is served" as a way to try to induce a visitor to a house to share a meal there. From Charlotte Lennox, Shakespear Illustrated, or, The Novels and Histories, on Which the plays of Shakespear Are Founded (1754) has this bit of dialogue from a translation of Plautus's play The Menaechmi:

EROTIA. ... My Love, what dost thou here? why dost not come into my House? thou who art more welcome to it than to thine own, nay, 'tis more thine than mine, for thou art Master both of it and me; every Thing is ready according to thy Order, all is prepared, every Wish shall be gratified, Dinner is served, there is nothing to hinder thee from placing thyself at Table.

MENAECHMUS. To whom does this Woman think she is speaking?

In this play, the Menaechmus who is speaking here is the long-separated twin brother of a wealthy Macedonian of the same name; Erotia is the mistress of the latter.

Also, from Elizabeth Griffith, The Times: A Comedy. As It Is Now Performing at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane (1780):

Forward. Dinner is served, please your Ladyship.

Forward is Lady Mary Woodley's servant.

And from Emma Southworth, Self-Raised: Or, From the Depths (1800):

"Let dinner be served immediately," he [Lord Vincent] said to the servant who answered the summons.

"Dinner is served, my lord," answered the man, pushing aside the sliding doors opening into the dining room.

...

The dinner was splendid in its service and luxurious in its viands; but most uncomfortable in its company, and it suggested the Scripture proverb: "Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith."

Here, Southworth clearly distinguishes between the dinner's viands (food) and its service (probably, in this case, a reference to the dishes, glasses, utensils, linens, and so on, in use, but perhaps also to the servants' performance of their duties).

Possible meaning of the phrase at its inception

There is no reason to suppose that, in the 1700s, "Dinner is served" meant "The food and drink for the meal have already been dished out or poured into their proper receptacles on the dinner table, so please come into the dining room, sit at the table, and eat what you've been given." To the contrary, the normal procedure at a fancy dinner seems to have been that first the guests and host were seated and then servants offered servings of food and drink to each one (although the host might be in charge of carving the main piece of meat, as ruler of the roast).

Interestingly, although Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language (1755) identifies 26 distinct meanings of the verb serve, John Kersey, Dictionarium Anglo-Britannicum: or, A General English Dictionary (1708) has only this:

To Serve, to attend, or wait on; to do Service, or Kindness.

Consistent with this definition, "to be served" might simply have meant to be attended or waited on by those who will be assisting with (in this case) the distribution of the food and drink. Thus, in the case of "Dinner is served," the signification might have originally been that the servants were in readiness to attend to the presentation of the meal, at which point the dinner might begin at the host's command.

On the other hand, the closest examples that Johnson's 1755 dictionary gives for serve in the relevant sense is this one:

To SERVE, v. a. {servir, French ; servis, Latin} ... 4. To bring as a menial attendant. [Cited examples: 1.] Bid them cover the table, serve in the meat, and we will come in to dinner. Shakespeare. [2.] Soon after our dinner was served in, which was right good viands, both for bread and meat: we had also drink of three sorts, all wholsome and good. Bacon. [3.] Besmeared with the horrid juice of of sepia, they danced a little in phantastick postures, retired a while, and then returned serving up a banquet as at solemn funerals. [4.] Some part he roasts; then serves it up so drest, / And bids me welcome to this humble feast: / Mov'd with disdain, / I with avenging flame the palace burn'd. Dryden. [5.] The same mess should be served up again for supper, and breakfast next morning. Arbuthnot.

Johnson's examples indicate that served in the sense of "brought [by servants]" was originally expressed as part of the phrase "served in" and later as part of the phrase "served up." But in that case, the announcement "Dinner is served" might mean "Dinner [that is, the food and drink] has been brought in to the dining room by servants, to be distributed to guests when they have been seated at the table."

Conclusions

The phrase "Dinner is served" seems to have been intended originally to inform the hearer[s] that the table in the dining room, the food from the kitchen, and the servants in attendance were fully prepared for the host and guests to come to the table and commence their meal. Although it may have suggested that the edibles and drinkables had been brought in to the dining room in some form, it did not imply that discrete portions of the food and drink have been placed on the diners' plates and in their drinking glasses.

In later years, it may be that "Dinner is served" came to be understood to mean simply "Dinner is ready to be served," whether the food items were still in the kitchen or were in serving dishes being held or otherwise overseen by waiting servants. Today, many people may understand it to mean "Dinner is on the table in serving dishes" or even "Dinner is on each guest's plate, already apportioned." But the "serving" of the original phrase "Dinner is served" seems to have taken the form of bringing and holding in readiness rather than of distributing on a dining room table or on individual plates.