banquet

Etymology

From Middle English banket, from Middle French banquet, from Italian banchetto (“light repast between meals, snack eaten on a small bench”, literally “a small bench”), from banco (“bench”), from Lombardic *bank, *panch (“bench”), from Proto-Germanic *bankiz (“bench”). Akin to Old High German bank, banch (“bench”), Old English benċ (“bench”). More at bank, bench.

noun

1. A large celebratory meal; a feast.
   And the sun, even as you and I and all there is, sits in equal honour at the banquet of the Prince whose door is always open and whose board is always spread. 1933, Kahlil Gibran, The Garden of the Prophet
   The thrill of discovery quickly wore off. TV crews and reporters were soon scurrying frantically to satisfy the medium’s insatiable appetite for novelty, sometimes achieving massive inanity instead. During coverage of the first great banquet, correspondents—who had not been given menus—variously described those little orange balls decorating the table’s center as pomegranates, oranges or JellO. (They were actually North China tangerines.) 6 March 1972, “China Coverage: Sweet and Sour”, in Time
2. A ceremonial dinner party for many people.
3. (archaic) A dessert; a course of sweetmeats.
   At Inverkeithing the teetotalers objected to this profligate expenditure, so the Provost and magistrates manfully paid for their “cookies” out of their own pockets. At Dunse, instead of a cake and wine banquet, there was “a fruit conversazione,” whatever that may be. 1874, Saturday Review: Politics, Literature, Science and Art

verb

1. (intransitive) To participate in a banquet; to feast.
2. (obsolete) To have dessert after a feast.
   1580, George Cavendish, quoted by John Stow (ed.), The Annales of England, Faithfully collected out of the most autenticall Authors, Records, and other Monuments of Antiquitie, 1600 edition, “Henry the eight.,” p. 907, Then was the banquetting chamber in the tilt yard at Greenewich, to the which place these strangers were conducted by the noblest personages in the court, where they did both sup and banquet.
3. (transitive) To treat with a banquet or sumptuous entertainment of food; to feast.
   1800, Frederick Schiller, The Piccolomini, or the First Part of Wallenstein, translated by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, London: Longman & Rees, Act I, scene i, p. 2, Just in time to banquet The illustrious company assembled there.