banquet
/ˈbaŋkwɪt
/- Macbeth invites Banquo to attend a dinner banquet in the evening as an honored guest.
- Finally, later that evening, the Dillard Family headed over to the downtown Sheraton for the formal banquet, which was also a great deal of fun.
- The banquet in the evening attended by about 200 people was an elegant affair.
- He would arrange 100-course banquets for lunch and then do it all again for dinner.
- Tickets cost £27.50 and include a four course banquet and entertainment.
- Medieval banquets, Viking feasts, dinner parties, wedding ceremonies, conferences and exhibitions: you name it, this venue can do it.
Synonyms
- Next it was to The Hall of Preserving Harmony which was used as the main banqueting hall and it was also the place where the elite scholars of China did their important examinations.
- He built palaces and banqueting halls on the hill and held meetings of the other provincial kings every three years at which time they made laws and held festivals of music and sport.
- It was proposed that the new multi-purpose building would provide a function room, banqueting hall, theatre and would cater for civil weddings.
Derivatives
banqueter
/ noun ...- The slaughtered animals would have yielded a large quantity of meat, far in excess of the needs of 22 banqueters, and probably enough to supply the entire population of the town around the palace.
- The number of seated banqueters could thus correspond to the number of miniature kylikes found in room 7.
- The principal banqueter is joined by six participants, all of whom hold cups in their right hands.
Origin
Late 15th century: from French, diminutive of banc 'bench' (see bank1).
bank from Middle English:
The very different uses of bank are all ultimately related. The bank beside a river was adopted from a Scandinavian word in the early Middle Ages, and is related to bench (Old English). The earliest use of the bank for a financial institution referred to a money-dealer's counter or table. This came from French or Italian in the late 15th century, but goes back to the same root as the river bank. A bank of oars or of lights represents yet another related form. It came into English in the early Middle Ages from French, and originally meant a bench or a platform to speak from. The bench or platform sense is also found in mountebank (late 16th century) for a charlatan, which comes from Italian monta in banco ‘climb on the bench’ referring to the way they attract a crowd, while a bankrupt (mid 16th century), originally a bankrout takes us back to the ‘counter’ sense. It is from Italian banca rotta, which really means ‘a broken bench’, referring to the breaking up of the traders business at the counter. The word was altered early on in its history in English, through association with Latin ruptus ‘broken’. Yet another word from the same source is banquet (Late Middle English) which comes from the French for ‘little bench’ and was originally a snack rather than a lavish meal.