cocktail party
48
2.5
- noun
- /ˈkɒk.teɪl ˈpɑːr.ti/
:
cóctel
- Last Saturday, I attended a lively cocktail party where guests mingled over drinks and appetizers.
Once you host that cocktail party, that happy hour, same thing.
- Once you host that cocktail party, that happy hour, same thing.
- I'm going to be making my recruits, my recruitments at diplomatic cocktail parties, right?
- Who knows what else he was doing, Sending checks out, holding cocktail parties, pulling a full Miramax campaign.
- So we will start playing weddings and and little cocktail parties and so all of that.
- My personal hell, by the way, is a cocktail party.
- That it might spur people to accomplish great things so that they could, you know, be heralded at the next cocktail party for their their insights.
- And what is the worst question that you could be asked at a bar or cocktail party in LA and, and how do you respond to it?
- OK, you know, this would be a good pizza to serve at the cocktail party, for example, a little bit of history lesson.
- A genius may be great for an interesting conversation at a cocktail party, but maybe not to take home for the long term.
- He went to this cocktail party and he made the rounds and he had a great time and he talked to lots of people and then he left.
Examples
-
He went to this cocktail party and he made the rounds and he had a great time and he talked to lots of people and then he left.
-
The parents looked as if they'd just come home from a cocktail party.
Fiction book (1991) -
Once you host that cocktail party, that happy hour, same thing.
-
How do you like this cocktail party, huh?
-
Twitter is the cocktail party of our society and it's about listening and not talking.
-
We have a suite upstairs that we can use for the cocktail party and the fashion show.
Fiction book (1993) -
Stacy, why exactly are we having a cocktail party again?
-
You're taking me to a cocktail party tonight.
-
If I ever get unpacked around here, I was thinking of having a cocktail party on Friday night.
-
We had noticed that John seemed distracted and sort of lonely at a faculty cocktail party one Friday afternoon.
Fiction book (2001)
Synonyms
75
1.0
An event where people are invited to eat dinner together
23
7.5
An evening party at someone's home
23
1.4
A social gathering in the afternoon where people drink tea and eat light food
4
9.6
A casual gathering where people drink alcohol
A social event an employer arranges for employees to celebrate and relax
How Formal
Surface Forms
Morphology
A B1 learner who knows 'cocktail' (an alcoholic mixed drink) and 'party' (a social gathering) can readily infer this denotes a social gathering where cocktails are served. The combination is fully compositional and mirrors patterns found in many languages, with no idiomatic or metaphorical shift.
Etymology
The noun cocktail party comes from small social gatherings where guests held a cocktail, a mixed drink, and moved around talking. That's why a cocktail party means a light social event in the late afternoon or early evening where drinks are served and people 'mingle'.