Meanings
plural Barmecide feasts
- A meal with very little or no food
[H]e decided that his loved one was on the point of starvation. No human being, he held, could exist on such Barmecide feasts.
1915, P.G. Wodehouse, chapter 8, in Something Fresh, London: Hutchinson, page 1221 more example
Arthur Rimbaud, in a hotel dining room where, though indulging in a Barmecide feast before empty plates and glasses, he evinces the most evident signs of gastronomic enjoyment.
1935, Milton H Stansbury, “The Surrealists”, in French Novelists of Today, University of Pennsylvania Press, pages 121-136 - Something that promises much but delivers nothing; an illusion.
Origin
From a tale in the Arabian Nights in which a rich man serves a beggar an imaginary banquet; see Barmecide.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
Barmecide feast. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Barmecide%20feast
“Barmecide feast.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Barmecide%20feast. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Barmecide feast,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Barmecide%20feast.
Source: Barmecide feast on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.