junket
Americannoun
-
a sweet, custardlike food of flavored milk curdled with rennet.
-
a pleasure excursion, as a picnic or outing.
-
a trip, as by an official or legislative committee, paid out of public funds and ostensibly to obtain information.
verb (used without object)
-
junkets,
present (3rd person singular)
-
junketed,
past participle, past
-
junketing
present participle
verb (used with object)
-
junkets,
present (3rd person singular)
-
junketed,
past participle, past
-
junketing
present participle
noun
-
an excursion, esp one made for pleasure at public expense by a public official or committee
-
a sweet dessert made of flavoured milk set to a curd with rennet
-
a feast or festive occasion
verb
-
(intr) (of a public official, committee, etc) to go on a junket
-
to have or entertain with a feast or festive gathering
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
junketsimple
-
junketssimple
-
have junketedperfect
-
has junketedperfect
-
am junketingprogressive
-
are junketingprogressive
-
is junketingprogressive
-
have been junketingperfect progressive
-
has been junketingperfect progressive
Past
-
junketedsimple
-
had junketedperfect
-
was junketingprogressive
-
were junketingprogressive
-
had been junketingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of junket
1350–1400; Middle English jonket < Old French (dial.) jonquette rush basket, equivalent to jonc (< Latin juncus reed) + -ette -ette
Explanation
A junket is a pleasure trip, often funded by someone else. You've probably heard of a politician taking a junket to a fancy resort, all paid for using taxpayer money. A junket can be used as a gift to try to get something from the person going on the trip. If you're a travel reporter and resort owners pay for your junket to check out their new property in Hawaii, you might feel like you owe them a good review. A junket isn't always devious: the word can simply mean a journey taken for pleasure, like when you take your boat out and sail down the coast for a couple days.
Vocabulary lists containing junket
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
100 Words to Make You Sound Smart
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
The Melting Pot: Food Words from Other Languages
Want to remember this word for good? Start your learning journey today with our library of interactive, themed word lists built by the experts at Vocabulary.com – we'll help you make the most of your study time!
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:
Ken Bensinger, a New York Times reporter who covers media and politics, wrote about this junket of Loomer’s.
From Slate ● Aug. 6, 2026
In March 2024, several dozen insurance agents from the U.S. took part in a three-day junket in and around Medellín, Colombia, where Regan lived and worked.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 29, 2026
For every thoughtful, interesting question asked of an artist on a red carpet or during a junket, there are three more vapid ones, and offenders almost always have a tiny microphone.
From Salon ● Jan. 11, 2026
On a travel junket that inspired his first book, “Innocents Abroad,” Twain saw a portrait of his future wife, Olivia “Livy” Langdon.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 9, 2025
She ate a big plateful of cabbage and salmon and finished off with junket.
From "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" by Carson McCullers
And no rules at the Guardian, apparently, regarding outrageous boondoggles and ocean-going junkets.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2025
Press junkets and red carpet interviews for superhero movies have been condensed to five-minute timeslots and two-question interviews, respectively — and that’s if a journalist is lucky.
From Salon ● Jul. 25, 2025
“At the first X Factor press junkets, journalists were saying, ‘Why are you here?
From BBC ● May 11, 2024
He conducted upbeat live interviews with actors and musicians from behind the anchor desk and was a mainstay at premiere red carpets and movie junkets.
From Seattle Times ● May 10, 2024
To all suggestions that they get out the canoes and go across to the island with the boys, or on other junkets, the girls responded with refusals.
From Wyn's Camping Days or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club by Amy Bell Marlowe
Robert Lansing attended the Paris peace conference in 1919, Charles Evans Hughes junketed to London in 1924 with the American Bar Association and Frank Billings Kellogg went to Cuba for the 1928 Pan-American Conference.
From Time Magazine Archive
He did a bit of loafing, broke out his bow and arrow for archery practice, gave a few parties, junketed off to Manhattan.
From Time Magazine Archive
Annually for 25 years he junketed to Washington to be greeted, photographed.
From Time Magazine Archive
Between tours she junketed on a Portuguese tramp steamer with a cargo of wild animals and a mad captain.
From Time Magazine Archive
I have perseveringly frisked in the high places of iniquity, I have junketed with all evil gods, and the utmost they could pretend to offer any of their servitors was a spasm.
From Gallantry Dizain des Fetes Galantes by James Branch Cabell
On a modern marketing budget, that would barely cover the junketing cast's travel and minibar expenses, but at the time, the advertising reach was, as The Times wrote in 1975, "a promotion man's dream."
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 20, 2015
It is above all serious, and tries to stay away from the flim-flam of artworld tourism and junketing.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 11, 2012
But even if all reporters were invulnerable to blandishment, the venerable practice of junketing would still be a sticky problem.
From Time Magazine Archive
Additional austerity measures included the restrictions on the use of official cars by ministers and civil servants, a government-wide clampdown on foreign junketing, and a ban on unauthorized international telephone calls.
From Time Magazine Archive
Nobody is fonder of junketing than a Welshman or Welshwoman, nothing in the way of an outing comes amiss; fairs, eisteddfodau, "auctions," church and chapel festivals, political meetings, anything for a jaunt!
From Stranger Than Fiction Being Tales from the Byways of Ghosts and Folk-lore by Mary L. Lewes
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.
