breakfast in bed

breakfast in bed (countable and uncountable, plural breakfasts in bed)

1. Breakfast served to one in bed upon waking, commonly to show appreciation for the receiver.

   The children made their mother breakfast in bed on her birthday.

   • 1990, Thomas D. Potts, Carole Jones Amos, Beginning a Bed and Breakfast in South Carolina: Guidelines for Development:

     You may choose to provide the option of breakfast in bed to guests celebrating special occasions. (Consider that accidents will occur and permanent food stains may result to comforters, blankets, or carpets.)

   • 2014, Dave Engledow, Confessions of the World's Best Father, Penguin, →ISBN, page 698:

     Today is Father's Day! Alice Bee totally surprised me by making breakfast in bed! Pancakes, maple syrup, even a fresh pot of coffee  

   • 2018, Michelle Palomo, Promises of Wanting You, Archway Publishing, →ISBN:

     The next morning, Patrick surprised Debbie and made her breakfast in bed with her favorite breakfast of pancakes and orange juice. “Aren't you going to have breakfast?” she asked him. “I ate while I was cooking ”

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see breakfast,‎ in,‎ bed.

   I ate breakfast in bed this morning.

breakfast in bed (third-person singular simple present breakfasts in bed, present participle breakfasting in bed, simple past and past participle breakfasted in bed)

1. (intransitive) To eat one's breakfast while in bed.
   • 1876, Charles James Dunphie, The Splendid Advantages of Being a Woman, page 67:

     Not that I "go in" for breakfasting in bed. It is a lazy, ignoble habit. A man ought to divide his life fairly between bed and board.

• “breakfast in bed”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.