junket
/ˈd͡ʒʌŋkɪt/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 2.34 in modern English
17
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A type of cream cheese, originally made in a rush basket; later, a food made of sweetened curds.
noun
A pleasure trip; a journey made for feasting or enjoyment, now especially a trip made ostensibly for business but which entails merrymaking or entertainment.
noun
Ellipsis of press junket.
Example Sentences
- "I love your meads, and I love your flowers, / And I love your junkets mainly […]."
- "The Sunday ended in gloom, which even junket for supper in the blue Dresden bowl could hardly lighten at all."
- "[…] though bride and bridegroom wants For to supply the places at the table, You know there wants no junkets at the feast."
- "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 […]."
- "Conversation is the natural Junket of the Mind ; and most Men have an Appetite to it, once in the day at least […]."
- "We're often in waiting / At junket or feting, / And sometimes attend an interment—"
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.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: jonket, iuncta, iuncus
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈd͡ʒʌŋkɪt/
- British English: /ˈd͡ʒʌŋkɪt/