Meaning & use
banquet dinner
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Meanings
nouncountable
A large formal evening meal for many guests, usually held to mark a special occasion or event.
Grammar: Countable: you can say a banquet dinner or two banquet dinners.
Patterns
- hold a banquet dinner
- attend a banquet dinner
- a banquet dinner for someone
The hotel held a banquet dinner for three hundred guests after the ceremony.
She wore a long black dress to the charity banquet dinner.
Tickets for the banquet dinner cost a hundred dollars each.
nouncountable or uncountable
The evening meal itself that is served at such a formal gathering.
Grammar: Often used without an article when talking about the food: the banquet dinner was cold.
Patterns
- the banquet dinner was served
- serve a banquet dinner
The banquet dinner was served at eight, with soup, roast beef, and cake.
Guests complained that the banquet dinner took two hours to arrive.
Word forms
| plural | banquet dinners |
|---|
Common combinations
- hold a banquet dinner
- The company holds a banquet dinner every year for its retired staff.
- attend a banquet dinner
- More than fifty doctors attended the banquet dinner in the main hall.
- a formal banquet dinner
- It was a formal banquet dinner, so jackets and ties were required.
- a charity banquet dinner
- Tickets to the charity banquet dinner sold out within a week.
- a wedding banquet dinner
- After the ceremony, the couple greeted guests at the wedding banquet dinner.
Synonyms and how they differ
- banquet
- Shorter and very common; it can mean the meal or the whole event, while banquet dinner stresses that the meal is in the evening.
- feast
- Suggests a generous, celebratory meal, but it is less formal and does not have to be for a large group.
- gala dinner
- A formal dinner held to raise money, so it fits charity events better than a plain family celebration.
Opposites
Word family
- banqueting adjective
- Describing rooms or facilities used for formal meals, as in a banqueting hall.
- banqueter noun
- A person who attends a banquet; fairly rare.
Commonly confused: banquet dinner or barbecue? banquet dinner or buffet?
banquet dinner vs barbecue
A barbecue is a casual outdoor meal where food is grilled; a banquet dinner is formal and usually indoors.
banquet dinner vs buffet
At a buffet, guests serve themselves from a table, but a banquet dinner is normally served to guests at their seats.
Practice
Which sentence uses "banquet dinner" most naturally?
Choose one answer.
A banquet dinner is a large formal evening meal for an occasion, so honoring teachers at a public event fits. The other options describe small, casual, everyday meals, which do not match the formal, large-scale meaning.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “banquet dinner”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.