junket
Americannoun
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a sweet, custardlike food of flavored milk curdled with rennet.
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a pleasure excursion, as a picnic or outing.
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a trip, as by an official or legislative committee, paid out of public funds and ostensibly to obtain information.
verb (used without object)
verb (used with object)
noun
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an excursion, esp one made for pleasure at public expense by a public official or committee
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a sweet dessert made of flavoured milk set to a curd with rennet
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a feast or festive occasion
verb
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(intr) (of a public official, committee, etc) to go on a junket
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to have or entertain with a feast or festive gathering
Other Word Forms
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
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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.
“It’s a bit like a dreamscape,” Luhrmann, 63, says of the movie as he sits in a suite at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills near the end of a recent press junket.
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 24, 2026
He tells reporters as much during a mini junket he organizes for himself over breakfast at the Ritz London, where Marty puts himself up despite having no way to pay for such luxurious accommodations.
From Salon • Dec. 25, 2025
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
Movie stars, however, are still forced to run the promotional gauntlet, taking part in the endless junket interviews and red carpet appearances written into their contracts.
From BBC • May 24, 2024
A morning train brought Mayor Thompson back into the city from a political junket in Wyoming.
From "A Few Red Drops: The Chicago Race Riot of 1919" by Claire Hartfield
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.
