cocktail party
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of cocktail party
First recorded in 1925–30
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.
And as MAGAdom rounded into shape, and I started telling my girlfriend about Milo Yiannopoulos, she said, “Rather than talking about this guy at a cocktail party, you should be writing a newsletter about it.”
From Slate • May 7, 2026
I did once spy him across the room at a cocktail party for Prince Andrew in the early 2000s.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 20, 2026
On Wednesday night, at a cocktail party, Scaramucci said it looked like he had been proven right.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 23, 2026
He said the most recent time they ran into each other was more than 10 years ago, at a cocktail party.
From Slate • Dec. 23, 2025
At the end of a cocktail party, a crowd of people would sit rapt at Tomkins’s feet.
From "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell
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.
