Definition of "tea"

Mother […] considered that the exclusiveness of Peter's circle was due not to its distinction, but to the fact that it was an inner Babylon of prodigality and whoredom, from which every Kensingtonian held aloof, except on the conventional tip-and-run excursions in pursuit of shopping, tea and theatres.

1922, Ben Travers, chapter 2, in A Cuckoo in the Nest‎

But the gorge of the Rush was not at all a nice place for travelling either. I mean, it was not a nice place for people in a hurry. For an afternoon's ramble ending in a picnic tea it would have been delightful.

1951, C. S. Lewis, Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia

Tea was a very special institution, revolving as it did around the ceremony and worship of Toast. In [public schools] where alcohol, tobacco and drugs were forbidden, it was essential that something should take their place as a powerful and public totem of virility and cool. Toast, for reasons lost in time, was the substance chosen.

1991, Stephen Fry, The Liar, London: Heinemann, page 23

Jacki set about making the tea—bacon grills with chips and bread and butter.

2018, Ray Wyre, Tim Tate, The Murder of Childhood, page 126

As recently as the mid-80s the players would be given a bottle of beer at lunchtime at some county grounds, and "tea" still meant a cup of tea into the 90s.

2009, “What do cricketers eat at tea? When is it safe to flush on the train? What's a plujit?”, Notes and queries: Life and style, in The Guardian‎

So they were evidence. Evidence of what? That a man occasionally smoked a stick of tea, a man who looked as if any touch of the exotic would appeal to him. On the other hand lots of tough guys smoked marijuana […] .

1940, Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely, Penguin, published 2010, page 103

Tea puts a musician in a real masterly sphere, and that's why so many jazzmen have used it.

1946, Mezz Mezzrow, Bernard Wolfe, Really the Blues, New York: Random House, page 74

Here in Texas possession of tea is a felony calling for 2 years.

1947 March 11, William Burroughs, letter

Seeing that we didn’t know anything about ourselves, he whipped out three sticks of tea and said to go ahead, supper’d be ready soon.

1957, Jack Kerouac, On the Road, Viking Press

"What's the tea on you and China? Where she at Alicia? You should know where ya baby at."

2015, Sonya Shuman, Doors of the Church Are Open: Smoke & Mirrors by Sonya Shuman

We tea’d with May, and had to wait over an hour for a taxi!

1916 March 28, Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, “Elizabeth”, in William Shawcross, editor, Counting One’s Blessings: The Selected Letters of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, New York, N.Y.: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, published 2012, page 32

I dined yesterday at | three on mutton chops and 1/2 pint of E[ast] I [ndian] sherry, and then tead and muffined' at 8.

1837, Benjamin Disraeli, Benjamin Disraeli Letters: 1835-1837, Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press, published 1982, page 319

We coffeed and tead and smoked a trench torch with Grand Master Browning, and cranked our Cadillac for another station.

1921, Desmos of Delta Sigma Delta, page 41

The wind was high and the hills ditto, and both being against us we were late in reaching Hitchin (30 from Cambridge), so giving up the idea of reaching Oxford we toiled on through Luton, on to Dunstable (47), where we teaed moderately […]

1877, The Bicycling Times and Tourist's Gazette, page 38

And they’ve got Professor Hummums with ’em, the great Everlasting Star of the Nineteenth Century, which he has breakfasted and dined and tea’d and supped here ever since yesterday.

1858, Benedict Cruiser, “Of the Agonising Process by which that which was once a Bower of Bliss was converted into a Cave of Despair”, in George Augustus Sala, editor, How I Tamed Mrs. Cruiser, London: James Blackwood, page 129

In half an hour they had all been tea’d and coffeed and refreshed by the nurses, and shortly after were all undressed and put to bed clean and comfortable, and in a droll state of grateful wonder;

1863, chapter I, in Hospital Transports. A Memoir of the Embarkation of the Sick and Wounded from the Peninsula of Virginia in the Summer of 1862., Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, page 25

But one or two evil-disposed characters muttered they might be sure the lady had her own turn to serve, and they might be sure they wasn't "teaed and muffined and sandwiched for nothing!"

1866, Emma Jane Worboise, “The St. Beetha’s Temperance Society”, in St. Beetha’s; or, The Heiress of Arne, London: “Christian World” Office, […]; Jackson, Walford, and Hodder, […], page 213

This gentleman was presented by Colonel C. E. S. Wood, and was entertained here—wined, dined, tead, breakfasted, coffeed and luncheoned—and we bought his pictures.

1909, The Public, page 109

After I’d tea’d everyone and Oz had breakfasted them, […]

2019, Jordaina Sydney Robinson, Dead Completely (Afterlife Adventures Series)