Short answers, pulled from the story.
The word dinner comes from the Old French disner (recorded around 1300), which derives from the Gallo-Romance desjunare, meaning "to break one's fast." The Latin roots are dis-, indicating the reversal of an action, and ieiunare, meaning "to fast."
Louis XIV, reflecting 17th-century custom, dined at noon. By 1765, King George III dined at 4:00 pm. By the time of the First French Empire, dinner in Paris had shifted to as late as 7:00 pm, which an English traveler described as an "abominable habit."
A survey by Jacob's Creek, an Australian winemaker, found the average evening meal time in the UK to be 7:47 pm.
American Time Use Survey data from 2018 to 2022 found the national peak dinner time to be 6:19 pm, with most households eating between 5:07 pm and 8:19 pm. Washington D.C. ate the latest at a 7:10 pm peak, while Pennsylvania peaked earliest at 5:37 pm.
Service a la russe (Russian style) brings each course to the table sequentially, with a waiter portioning food onto individual plates. Service a la francaise (French style) places multiple dishes on the table all at once in a display, and guests serve themselves.
Dinner moved to the evening over the 16th through 19th centuries due to changes in work practices, the availability of artificial lighting, financial status, and cultural shifts. The trend was led by the elite, who had no fixed working hours, and was reinforced by longer commutes as cities expanded.