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 shows so far have spanned the modern desert’s full range of scenes — country dance nights, the scuzzy punk of Throw Rag, cabaret drag acts and gothic folk from Blood Nebraska.

From Los Angeles Times

In addition to her soap opera career, Fulton had a cabaret act for years in New York and Los Angeles.

From Los Angeles Times

The final shot is one of the most foreboding in Hollywood history, with Nazis in uniform reflected in the cabaret’s distorted mirror, leering from the VIP seats at the front of the stage.

From Salon

He added during her last years, she worked in some of the most prestigious cabaret venues in America where she sang Welsh songs.

From BBC

With that, the die is cast, destiny is in motion and Mary Todd Lincoln gets her long-awaited Tony for her cabaret prowess.

From Salon

Related Words

• disco