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banquet

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The definition of a banquet is an elaborate dinner, usually for the purpose of celebration.

(noun)

A dinner honoring the recipient of an award and a fancy meal for graduating high school seniors are each an example of a banquet.

See banquet in Webster's New World College Dictionary

noun

an elaborate meal; feast
a formal dinner for many people, usually with toasts and speeches

Origin: LME banket < MFr banquet < OIt banchetto, dim. of banca: see bank

transitive verb

to honor with a banquet

intransitive verb

to dine at a banquet

See banquet in American Heritage Dictionary 4

noun

An elaborate, sumptuous repast.
A ceremonial dinner honoring a particular guest or occasion.

tr. & intr.v. ban·quet·ed, ban·quet·ing, ban·quets

To honor at or partake of a banquet.

Origin:

Origin: Old French

Origin: , diminutive of banc, bench; see bank³

Related Forms:

banˈquet·er noun

Word History: The linguistic stock of the word banquet has been fluctuating for a long time. The Old French word banquet, the likely source of our word, is derived from Old French banc, “bench,” ultimately of Germanic origin. The sense development in Old French seems to have been from “little bench” to “meal taken on the family workbench” to “feast.” The English word banquet is first recorded in a work possibly composed before 1475 with reference to a feast held by the god Apollo, and it appears to have been used from the 15th to the 18th century to refer to the feasts of the powerful and the wealthy. Perhaps this association led a 19th-century newspaper editor to label the word “grandiloquent” because it was being appropriated by those lower down on the social scale.

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