The Chinese word 點心 diǎnxīn / deanshin has several different meanings, each rendered by a very specific English word: snack, dimsum, dessert

A. snack = a small meal independent of breakfast, lunch and dinner
French people, like other Europeans, tend to eat dinner much later than, say, Americans. Thus, when children come home from school, they have to wait a long time before sitting down for a meal.

This is the kind of snack my mother sometimes prepared for me when I came home from school: crusty French bread and a couple of squares of dark chocolate

These snacks are party food, sometimes called hors d'oeuvres (a French word pronounced /ɔʁ dœvʁ/). They could be eaten separately, but they are usually eaten as an appetizer, a sort of “pre-meal”.

B. dimsum = a series of small, mostly meat-based dishes eaten for breakfast, especially in Cantonese restaurants

Dumplings in a bamboo steamer, one of the many dishes one might enjoy for breakfast (飲茶 yǐnchá / yiinchar [literally] “drink tea”) in a Hong Kong tea house 茶樓 chálóu / charlou.

C. dessert = sweet food eaten at the end of a major meal (lunch and dinner): cake, fresh fruit, pudding etc.

Fresh figs, like the ones I used to enjoy in southern Spain

Indian-style rice pudding (Kheer), CC-BY Purdman1