feast meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

feast

noun

/ˈfiːst/ · [ˈfɪi̯st]

Etymology From Middle English feeste, feste, borrowed from Old French feste, from Late Latin festa, from the plural of Latin festum (“holiday, festival, feast”), from Proto-Italic *fēs-tos, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *dʰéh₁s (“god, godhead, deity”); see also Ancient Greek θεός (theós, “god, goddess”). More at theo-. Doublet of fete, fiesta, and fest. Displaced Old English winhate.

A holiday, festival, especially a religious one

The seventh day shall be a feast to the Lord.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Exodus 13:6:
Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the passover.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Luke 2:41:

A very large meal, often of a ceremonial nature.

We had a feast to celebrate the harvest.

Figuratively Something delightful and satisfying.

It was a feast for the eyes.

Derived terms: 54 terms
a contented mind is a perpetual feast, afterfeast, Barmecide feast, bean-feast, beanfeast, bean feast, birthfeast, bull feast, double feast, Dutch feast, enough is as good as a feast, feast day, feaster, feast for the eyes, feastful, feastless, feastlike, feastly, Feast of Asses, Feast of Fools, Feast of Light, Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels, Feast of the Circumcision of Christ, Feast of the Divine Mercy, Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus, Feast of Trumpets, Feast of Tsing Ming, Feast of Weeks, feast one's eyes, feast or famine, famine or feast, feastware, Feast Week, feasty, festive, fixed feast, forefeast, ghost at the feast, Great Feasts, hog feast, love feast, midnight feast, movable feast, moveable feast, postfeast, prefeast, run feast, silver feast, silver-feast, skeleton at the feast, smell-feast, specter at the feast, spectre at the feast

feast

verb

Etymology From Middle English feesten, festen, from Old French fester, from Medieval Latin festāre, from the noun. See above.

To partake in a feast, or large meal.

I feasted on turkey and dumplings.

To dwell upon (something) with delight.

With my love's picture then my eye doth feast.1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 47”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC:

To hold a feast in honor of (someone).

He that shall see this day, and live old age, Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors And say “Tomorrow is Saint Crispian.”1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii]:
His ancestor, he said, had been feasted there, when he went forward with the then Lord Ravenswood to the fatal battle of Flodden, in which they both fell.1819, Jedediah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], chapter XI, in Tales of My Landlord, Third Series. […], volume II (The Bride of Lammermoor), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC:

1 more example

We feasted them after the victory.

Obsolete To serve as a feast for; to feed sumptuously.

1597–1598, Joseph Hall, Virgidemiarum Or once a week, perhaps, for novelty / Reez'd bacon-soords shall feast his family.

Derived terms: feaster, feasting, feast one's eyes, outfeast, unfeasted

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