dinner party

plural dinner parties · alternative dinner-party

1. A relatively formal meal at which invited guests eat in the home of the host.

   If the dinner party does become extinct, I will mourn its passing. I like having them, and I love being invited to them.

   2023 July 15, Rachel Cooke, “No, Nigella – dinner parties are great. Deliveroo just doesn’t cut it”, in The Observer, →ISSN

   1 more example

   She is only coming to gloat over my bedraggled and flowerless borders and to sing the praises of her own detestably over-cultivated garden. I’m sick of being told that it’s the envy of the neighbourhood; it’s like everything else that belongs to her—her car, her dinner-parties, even her headaches, they are all superlative; no one else ever had anything like them.

   1919, Saki, The Toys of Peace and Other Papers

   Synonyms: guestmeal