Other forms: toasts
A toast is raised glasses and words of good wishes. Propose a toast, drink a toast, a toast to the bride.
The proposer says a few words and everybody raises a glass and drinks. At a wedding the toasts follow a fixed order in British custom. The word also means bread browned by heat, and the two are the same word: spiced toast was once floated in wine, and the person honoured was said to flavour the drink as the toast did. Note toast as a verb; and toast of the town.
1nountoastRaised glasses and words of good wishes.
“The best man raised his glass and proposed a toast to the happy couple.”
2nounbreadBread browned by heat.
“I had hot buttered toast and a cup of tea for breakfast.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
toast is a salutation, or browned bread.
Middle English tost comes from a verb meaning to burn or dry. The drinking sense dates from about 1674, from the practice of putting spiced toast in wine.
Middle English
tost
English, today
toast
From Middle English tost. From Middle English tost, from the verb tosten (see below). to which a salutation is made is according to the Oxford English Dictionary a figurative application of Q6128 dating to 1674. It began as an epithet for a lady being supposed to flavour a bumper like a spiced toast placed in that drink. (In this context, a bumper is a drinking vessel filled to the brim.)
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA