Cenar means 'to have dinner', and it is a regular -ar verb tied to the food and daily-routine topics. Spanish has dedicated verbs for meals — desayunar (to have breakfast), comer (to have lunch) and cenar (to have dinner) — which English handles with 'have' plus a noun. Ceno a las nueve (I have dinner at nine), cenamos en un restaurante (we had dinner in a restaurant). Because describing your daily routine and mealtimes is core GCSE material, cenar is genuinely useful. As a regular -ar verb the forms are predictable.
Quick facts
Cenar (to have dinner) is a regular -ar verb.
Real sentences across different tenses — the kind of thing you'd actually say or write.
Ceno a las nueve (I have dinner at nine).
Cenamos fuera (we had dinner out).
Compare desayunar, comer, cenar.
Core to describing your daily schedule.
Fixed expressions worth knowing — they come up in listening, reading and writing tasks.
Idiomatic expressions
cenar is a regular -ar verb — it follows the standard -ar pattern in every tense. That makes it a good one to drill: if you know cenar, you know the template for all regular -ar verbs.
Type conjugations from memory and get instant feedback. That's how you actually build the automatic recall the exam needs — not from reading tables.
Practice cenar now →Three questions, no account needed. Type the form, then press Enter or tap Check.
yo: ceno, tú: cenas, él: cena, nosotros: cenamos, vosotros: cenáis, ellos: cenan
The past participle is cenado (he cenado) and the gerund is cenando (estoy cenando).
Cenar is on the AQA and Eduqas GCSE Spanish vocabulary lists, but not on Edexcel.
Verbs that are easy to confuse with cenar or that behave like it.
Cenar is on the AQA and Eduqas GCSE Spanish vocabulary lists, but not on Edexcel. Compare the exam boards.
Written by Daniel Holmes for GCSE & A-Level Spanish students.