cabaret

[kab-uh-rey, kab-uh-ret]

noun

1. a restaurant providing food, drink, music, a dance floor, and often a floor show.

2. a caf é that serves food and drink and offers entertainment often of an improvisatory, satirical, and topical nature.

   Synonyms: club, supper club, nightclub

3. a floor show consisting of such entertainment.

   The cover charge includes dinner and a cabaret.

4. a form of theatrical entertainment, consisting mainly of political satire in the form of skits, songs, and improvisations.

   an actress whose credits include cabaret, TV, and dinner theater.

5. a decoratively painted porcelain coffee or tea service with tray, produced especially in the 18th century.

6. Archaic.,  a shop selling wines and liquors.

verb (used without object)

cabareted, cabareting 

1. to attend or frequent cabarets.

cabaret

/ ˈkæbəˌreɪ /

noun

1. a floor show of dancing, singing, or other light entertainment at a nightclub or restaurant

2. a nightclub or restaurant providing such entertainment

Word History and Origins

Origin of cabaret¹

1625–35; < French: tap-room, Middle French dial. ( Picard or Walloon) < Middle Dutch, denasalized variant of cambret, cameret < Picard camberete small room (cognate with French chambrette; chamber, -ette )

Word History and Origins

Origin of cabaret¹

C17: from Norman French: tavern, probably from Late Latin camera an arched roof, _chamber

Example Sentences

The retelling of the first lady’s life recasts her as a petulant former cabaret performer who would rather be on stage than in the White House.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

I look forward to my favorite local drag cabaret’s adaptation for its brunch performances, if anybody I know can afford to dine out whenever that comes together and manage to chew with mouths closed.

Read more on Salon

The couple was spotted by paparazzi holding hands in Paris last weekend as they left the Crazy Horse cabaret, where they had been celebrating Perry's 41st birthday.

Read more on BBC

For 25 years, the small, L-shaped Gardenia room on Santa Monica Boulevard has served as a musical home for a diverse group of would-be jazz and cabaret singers.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

“I manifested it right here,” she says as she waves an arm around the cozy cabaret tucked inside the Sun Rose hotel on — where else?

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• disco