junket

Etymology

From Middle English jonket (“basket made of rushes; food, probably made of sour milk or cream; banquet, feast.”), from Medieval Latin iuncta, possibly from Latin iuncus (“rush, reed”) and therefore a possible doublet of jonquil. Meaning shifted to "feast or banquet" by 1520s, probably via the notion of a picnic basket. This in turn led to the sense of "pleasure-trip" (1814), and then to specifically to "trip made ostensibly for business but which entails merrymaking or entertainment" by 1886 in American English.

noun

1. (obsolete) A basket.
2. A type of cream cheese, originally made in a rush basket; later, a food made of sweetened curds or rennet.
   I love your meads, and I love your flowers, / And I love your junkets mainly …. 1818, John Keats, Where be ye going, you Devon maid?
3. (obsolete) A delicacy.
4. A feast or banquet.
   Conversation is the natural Junket of the Mind ; and most Men have an Appetite to it, once in the day at least …. 1790, Ambrose Philips, The free-thinker, volume III, number 124, page 95
5. A pleasure-trip; a journey made for feasting or enjoyment, now especially a trip made ostensibly for business but which entails merrymaking or entertainment.
6. A press junket.
   An entertainment reporter who is a member of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association said Freeman made comments about her skirt and her legs during two different junkets. 2018, An Phung and Chloe Melas,"Women accuse Morgan Freeman of inappropriate behavior, harassment", CNN entertainment, May 24, 2018
7. (gambling) A gaming room for which the capacity and limits change daily, often rented out to private vendors who run tour groups through them and give a portion of the proceeds to the main casino.

verb

1. (intransitive, dated) To attend a junket; to feast.
   Be careful that you wast not, or spoil your Ladies, or Mistresses goods, neither sit you up junketing a nights, after your Master and Mistress be abed. 1677, Hannah Woolley, The Compleat Servant-Maid, London: T. Passinger, page 2
   1688, Robert South, Sermon preached on 8 April, 1688, in Twelve Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions. The Second Volume, London: Thomas Bennet, p. 414, Iob’s Children junketted and feasted together often, but the Reckoning cost them dear at last.
   After they had built their water-house and laid their pipes, it occurred to them that the place was suitable for junketing. Once entertained, with jovial magistrates and public funds, the idea led speedily to accomplishment; and Edinburgh could soon boast of a municipal Pleasure House. 1879, Robert Louis Stevenson, chapter 10, in Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes, London: Seeley, Jackson & Halliday, page 38
2. (intransitive) To go on a junket; to travel.
   Together they made trips to town or junketed over the country in search of furniture and dishes of which Miss Sally had heard. 1910, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Miss Sally’s Letter
   It is only by much junketing about that one comes to the full realization of what men and women in the main are doing in this country. One learns as he passes from town to town, through cities and across plains, that the general reason for industry everywhere is to get the means to build and support a home. 1921, Ida Tarbell, “The Socialization of the Home”, in The Business of Being a Woman, New York: Macmillan
   It was her belief that the summer folk went junketing off with the first fall of autumn leaves, leaving their cats to starve. 1943, Patrick Quentin, “The Last of Mrs. Maybrick”, in Marc Gerald, editor, Murder Plus: True Crime Stories from the Masters of Detective Fiction, New York: Pharos, published 1992, page 214
   On the boat I met an old art history professor, with whom I junketed around for a while, visiting museums in London and Paris […] 1985, Herman Wouk, chapter 81, in Inside, Outside, New York: Avon, published 1986, page 549
3. (transitive) To regale or entertain with a feast.