feast

/ˈfiːst/

feast noun: a holiday, festival, especially a religious one.

Noun

feast (plural feasts)

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.
Synonyms:

banquet
(figuratively) Something delightful and satisfying.
- It was a feast for the eyes.
- Lenin took the view, which is still treated as a a dogma by the Communist movement, that revisionism came into being as an ideology reflecting the interests of the aristocracy of the working class, whom the bourgeoisie permitted to enjoy the 'left-overs' of their feast of prosperity.1978 [1976], Leszek Kołakowski, translated by P[aul] S[teven] Falla, Main Currents of Marxism, volume II: The Golden Age, Oxford: Clarendon Press, translation of Główne nurty marksizmu: rozwój (in...

Verb

feast (third-person singular simple present feasts, present participle feasting, simple past and past participle feasted)

(intransitive) To partake in a feast, or large meal.
- I feasted on turkey and dumplings.
(intransitive) 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
(transitive) 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...
- 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...
(obsolete, transitive) To serve as a feast for; to feed sumptuously.
- Or once a week, perhaps, for novelty / Reez'd bacon-soords shall feast his family.1597–1598, Joseph Hall, Virgidemiarum

Proper noun capitalized: Feast

Feast (plural Feasts)

A surname from Middle English.
A Baháʼí community meeting; occuring every nineteen days.

feast meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

feast in Hindi

large, often ceremonial meal: भोज bhoj, दावत dāvat
to partake in a feast: जीमना jīmnā

feast in Tamil

festival, holiday, solemn, or more commonly, joyous, anniversary: பண்டிகை paṇṭikai
large, often ceremonial meal: விருந்து viruntu
something delightful: விருந்து viruntu
to hold a feast in honor of someone: விருந்துவை viruntuvai, விருந்திடு viruntiṭu

feast in Urdu

large, often ceremonial meal: دعوت da'vat, ضیافت ziyāfat

More languagesFewer languages

feast in Bengali: ভোজ bhōj
feast in Telugu: విందు vindu
feast in Malayalam: വിരുന്ന് virunnŭ
feast in Kannada: ಸುಗ್ಗಿ, ಒಸಗೆ, ಹಬ್ಬದೂಟ, ಔತಣ
feast in Punjabi: ਈਦ īd, ਪੁਰਬ purab
feast in Gujarati: દાવત dāvat
feast in Odia: ଉତ୍ସବ utsaba
feast in Sanskrit: प्सरस् psaras
feast in Sinhala: උත්සවය utsawaya
feast in Assamese: ভোজ bhüz
feast in Nepali: भोज, भोज-भोज
feast in Pashto: بزم bazm, جشن ǰašᶕn
feast in Arabic: وَلِيمَة walīma, مَأْدُبَة maʔduba
feast in Malay: pesta, jamuan, kenduri
feast in Indonesian: pesta
feast in Persian: جشن jašn, ضیافت ziyâfat, بزم bazm
feast in Thai: งานฉลอง ngaan-chà-lɔ̌ɔng
feast in Vietnamese: tiệc, tiệc lớn, yến tiệc
feast in Myanmar: စားပွဲ ca:pwai:

Examples of feast in a sentence

At the king's coronation feast, several subtleties were served between main courses.
We sat down to a groaning table and feasted all evening.
Frumenty was often the first dish on the menu of a medieval English feast.

All 40 example sentences with feast

Synonyms of feast

banquet

Forms of feast

Noun
plural	feasts
Verb
third-person singular present	feasts
present participle	feasting
past participle	feasted
past	feasted
Proper noun
plural	Feasts

Plural of feast: feasts

Origin of feast

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.

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

From either Middle English fist (“fist”), perhaps a nickname for an aggressive person, or from Middle English fest (“fart”). The Baháʼí sense is a calque of Calque of Persian ضیافت (ziyâfat).

Words formed from feast

Phrases with feast

Words that rhyme with feast

12 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about feast

What does feast mean?: Feast means a holiday, festival, especially a religious one.
What is feast in Hindi?: Feast in Hindi is भोज (bhoj), दावत (dāvat), जीमना (jīmnā). See Feast meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is feast?: Feast can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce feast?: Feast is pronounced /ˈfiːst/.
What is the plural of feast?: The plural of feast is feasts.

Words near feast in the dictionary

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-feast.ogg.

Cite this entry: “feast.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/feast. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.