Take-out
prepared meal or other food items, purchased at a restaurant or fast food outlet to be consumed offsite
A take-out (US, Canada, Philippines) or takeaway (UK, Ireland, Commonwealth) is a prepared meal or other food items purchased at a restaurant or fast food outlet with the intent to eat elsewhere. A concept found in many ancient cultures, take-out food is common worldwide, with a number of different cuisines and dishes on offer.
History
The concept of prepared meals to be eaten elsewhere dates back to antiquity. Market and roadside stalls selling food were common in Ancient Greece and Rome. Many people relied on them for their daily food. In Pompeii, archaeologists have found a number of thermopolia, service counters opening onto the street which provided food to be taken away. There is a distinct lack of formal dining and kitchen area in Pompeian homes, which may suggest that eating, or at least cooking, at home was unusual. Over 200 thermopolia have been found in the ruins of Pompeii.
In the cities of medieval Europe, a number of street vendors sold take-out food. In medieval London, street vendors sold hot meat pies, geese, sheep's feet and French wine, while in Paris roasted meats, squab, tarts and flans, cheeses and eggs were available.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Take-out” is prepared meal or other food items, purchased at a restaurant or fast food outlet to be consumed offsite. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Take-out, prepared and meal, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “prepared meal or other food items, purchased at a restaurant or fast food outlet to be consumed offsite” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q154383. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
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- Subject orientation
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Take-out”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Take-out primary sources, Take-out archive and Take-out research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Take-out” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.