banquet
Americannoun
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banquets
plural
-
a lavish meal; feast.
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a ceremonious public dinner, especially one honoring a person, benefiting a charity, etc.
verb (used with object)
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banquets,
present (3rd person singular)
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banqueted,
past participle, past
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banqueting
present participle
verb (used without object)
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banquets,
present (3rd person singular)
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banqueted,
past participle, past
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banqueting
present participle
noun
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a lavish and sumptuous meal; feast
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a ceremonial meal for many people, often followed by speeches
verb
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(intr) to hold or take part in a banquet
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(tr) to entertain or honour (a person) with a banquet
Usage
What does banquet mean? A banquet is a feast, as in Theo likes to host banquets so he can cook all his favorite foods for others. A banquet is also a public dinner, often very fancy and benefiting a charity or celebrating a person, as in Mac likes to organize the sports banquet at the end of the year for all the school’s teams. A banquet is basically a feast for a lot of people. It’s a large, sumptuous meal during a ceremonious gathering. Banquets can be arranged to benefit a charity or to celebrate a specific person or group of people. To banquet means to entertain with a banquet or to have a banquet. You’ll often hear the phrase banqueting hall, which is a room, especially in large medieval buildings, that is big enough to hold a banquet. Example: Doreen hosted a banquet to raise money for a children’s charity.
Synonym Usage
See feast.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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banquetsimple
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banquetssimple
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have banquetedperfect
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has banquetedperfect
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am banquetingprogressive
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are banquetingprogressive
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is banquetingprogressive
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have been banquetingperfect progressive
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has been banquetingperfect progressive
Past
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banquetedsimple
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had banquetedperfect
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was banquetingprogressive
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were banquetingprogressive
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had been banquetingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of banquet
First recorded in 1450–1500; from Middle French, from Italian banchetto ( banc(o) “table” ( see bank 2) + -etto -et ); replacing late Middle English bankat, banket(te), from Middle French
Explanation
It’s customary to celebrate Thanksgiving with a banquet, or elaborate feast — along with the requisite bickering between family members. If you sat down to a banquet in the earliest sense of this word, you’d surely be disappointed. Banquet comes from a French word meaning "bench," and originally a banquet was a small snack — something you could eat while sitting on a bench. If a particular family member isn’t cooperating at your next holiday meal, consider having him dine in this traditional fashion, on a bench somewhere far from the dining room table.
Vocabulary lists containing banquet
Party Parlance for Mardi Gras
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Ancient Rome - Introductory
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Beowulf vocabulary
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The back doors to the main sanctuary would be open, and the banquet hall behind it would be filled with seats, going all the way up to the stage at the end of the room.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 20, 2026
A 12-course banquet of huff and puff finally brought to an end by one of the few bouts of coherent football that led to Ryan Naderi's winner.
From BBC ● Aug. 20, 2026
Louis, in comparison, is kinda busted — gloomy, tortured, unable to fully embrace the everlasting banquet Lestat has laid out for him.
From Salon ● Jun. 13, 2026
Leonor said her sister and brother, who co-own a banquet hall in the city of Commerce, soon lost a year’s worth of bookings.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 7, 2026
But a lot of people came to the banquet that night, more than a hundred.
From "Black Star, Bright Dawn" by Scott O'Dell
The King will continue to host a range of events at the palace, from state banquets and garden parties to receptions and audiences with the prime minister and new ambassadors.
From BBC ● Sep. 13, 2026
They pioneered winemaking, loved banquets and included women in public life.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 18, 2026
The King will continue to host a range of events at the palace from state banquets and garden parties to receptions and audiences with the prime minister and new ambassadors.
From BBC ● Jun. 25, 2026
Embraced across China since the 1970s, these tunes are widely performed at both casual gatherings and high-profile state banquets.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 26, 2026
After Jem’s funeral, they were in the kitchen cleaning up the remains of the tribal banquets that are a part of dying in Maycomb.
From "Go Set a Watchman: A Novel" by Harper Lee
He met with Lao president Bounnhang Vorachit, was feted at a welcome banqueted, where he toasted to a relationship he said would “mean greater progress and opportunity for the people of Laos”.
From The Guardian ● Sep. 6, 2016
Three football elevens who banqueted with no speakers present.
From Time Magazine Archive
That night, while the four Majesties banqueted at Sinaia, Rumania's greatest diplomat, Foreign Minister Nicholas Titulescu, was seized in the Royal Chateau with acute inflammation of the middle ear.
From Time Magazine Archive
They banqueted on the bulbs as fast as the gardeners could plant them.
From Time Magazine Archive
They knew just what the divine inhabitants did there, what they ate and drank and where they banqueted and how they amused themselves.
From "Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" by Edith Hamilton
“The extravagant gifting and banqueting and entertaining that fueled one big sector of imported wine has evaporated,” said Ian Ford, founding partner of Nimbility, an Asia-based beverage consulting firm.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 24, 2026
A huge banqueting room with jet black walls and breathtaking artwork of classical scenes was found last year.
From BBC ● Jan. 17, 2025
As photos on the academy website show, this was the last of the banqueting Oscars.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 8, 2023
Or, oh — I want Keats, Byron, Rachel Carson, Dickens, Darwin — and, oh, I so want Churchill and, and, and — my dinner party will need a banqueting hall to fit them all in!
From New York Times ● Oct. 14, 2021
Marriage was the thing, or rather, a wedding was, with its formal neatness of virtue rewarded, the thrill of its pageantry and banqueting, and dizzy promise of lifelong union.
From "Atonement" by Ian McEwan
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
