junket
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈd͡ʒʌŋkɪt/
rhymes: -ʌŋkɪt
Forms: form: junkets
Etymology: From Middle English jonket (“basket made of rushes”), 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.
Senses: glosses: A basket.
examples: text: I love your meads, and I love your flowers, / And I love your junkets mainly […].
ref: 1818, John Keats, Where be ye going, you Devon maid?:
text: The Sunday ended in gloom, which even junket for supper in the blue Dresden bowl could hardly lighten at all.
ref: 1904, E. Nesbit, The Phoenix and the Carpet:
glosses: A type of cream cheese, originally made in a rush basket; later, a food made of sweetened curds.
examples: text: […] though bride and bridegroom wants
For to supply the places at the table,
You know there wants no junkets at the feast.
ref: c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:
text: Goe streight, and take with thee to witnesse it / Sixe of thy fellowes of the best array, / And beare with you both wine and juncates fit, / And bid him eate […].
ref: 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
glosses: A delicacy.
examples: text: Conversation is the natural Junket of the Mind ; and most Men have an Appetite to it, once in the day at least […].
ref: 1790, Ambrose Philips, The free-thinker, volume III, number 124, page 95:
text: We're often in waiting / At junket or feting, / And sometimes attend an interment—
ref: 1889, W[illiam] S[chwenck] Gilbert, Arthur Sullivan, composer, The Gondoliers […] :
glosses: A feast or banquet.
examples: text: It did strike him as odd, perhaps, that merchants did not dare to go on a junket or plan a congenial dinner without pretending to themselves that it had some business significance.
ref: 1922, Christopher Morley, chapter 9, in Where the Blue Begins:
glosses: A pleasure trip; a journey made for feasting or enjoyment, now especially a trip made ostensibly for business but which entails merrymaking or entertainment.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 2018 May 24, An Phung, Chloe Melas, “Women accuse Morgan Freeman of inappropriate behavior, harassment”, in CNN entertainment:
text: Every time anything of note happens – any time there is a junket or a new actor is cast – the issue will be front and centre.
ref: 2025 June 11, Stuart Heritage, “‘Please walk away from Harry Potter’: why the stars of HBO’s new TV show are in for decades of social media hell”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
topics: broadcasting
film
media
television
glosses: Ellipsis of press junket.
topics: gambling
games
glosses: 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.
Derived terms: junketeer
junketer
junkety