Word.ws English Dictionary

junket

UK/ˈd͡ʒʌŋkɪt/

junket noun: a basket. Also the ellipsis of press junket.

Noun

junket (plural junkets)

  1. (obsolete) A basket.
  2. A type of cream cheese, originally made in a rush basket; later, a food made of sweetened curds.
    • 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?
    • The Sunday ended in gloom, which even junket for supper in the blue Dresden bowl could hardly lighten at all.1904, E. Nesbit, The Phoenix and the Carpet
  3. (obsolete) A delicacy.
    • […] though bride and bridegroom wants
      For to supply the places at the table,
      You know there wants no junkets at the feast.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]...
    • 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 […].1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
  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
    • We're often in waiting / At junket or feting, / And sometimes attend an interment—1889, W[illiam] S[chwenck] Gilbert, Arthur Sullivan, composer, The Gondoliers […]
  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.
    • 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.1922, Christopher Morley, chapter 9, in Where the Blue Begins
  6. 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

junket (third-person singular simple present junkets, present participle junketing or junketting, simple past and past participle junketed or junketted)

  1. (dated, intransitive) 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
    • Iob’s Children junketted and feasted together often, but the Reckoning cost them dear at last.1688, Robert South, Sermon preached on 8 April, 1688, in Twelve Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions. The Second Volume, London: Thomas Bennet, p. 414
    Synonyms:
    banquet
  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...1921, Ida Tarbell, “The Socialization of the Home”, in The Business of Being a Woman, New York: Macmillan
    Synonyms:
    gallivant, jaunt
  3. (transitive) To regale or entertain with a feast.

Also used as

junket is also the ellipsis of press junket.

Examples of junket in a sentence

  • After they had built their water-house and laid their pipes, it occurred to them that the place was suitable for junketing.1879, Robert Louis Stevenson, chapter 10, in Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes, London: Seeley, Jackson & Halliday, page 38:
  • 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.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...
  • 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:

All 10 example sentences with junket

Synonyms of junket

Forms of junket

Noun
pluraljunkets
Verb
third-person singular presentjunkets
present participlejunketing
present participlejunketting
past participlejunketed
pastjunketed
past participlejunketted
pastjunketted

Origin of junket

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.

Words formed from junket

Phrases with junket

Questions about junket

What does junket mean?
Junket means a basket.
How do you use junket in a sentence?
After they had built their water-house and laid their pipes, it occurred to them that the place was suitable for junketing.
What part of speech is junket?
Junket can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce junket?
Junket is pronounced /ˈd͡ʒʌŋkɪt/ (UK).
What is the plural of junket?
The plural of junket is junkets.

Words near junket in the dictionary

  1. junker
  2. junkerdom
  3. junkerish
  4. junkerism
  5. junkers
  6. junket
  7. junketed
  8. junketeer
  9. junketeered
  10. junketeering
  11. junketeers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: junket (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-junket.ogg, en-au-junket.ogg.

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