cocktail partyn.
/ˈkɒkteɪl ˌpɑːti/, U.S. /ˈkɑkteɪl ˌpɑrdi/ A party at which cocktails and other refreshments are served, esp. one in the early evening with a semi-formal dress code.
ΘΚΠ
society > leisure > social event > social gathering > party > [noun] > drinking-party
potationa1500
symposium1711
wine-party1829
shout1854
wine1857
grog-fight1864
punch1871
grog1888
beer drink1895
cocktail party1903
cocktails1922
jollo1934
sherry party1936
shebeen1943
sundowner1944
wine and cheese (party, etc.)1961
kegger1966
sherry morning1976
1903 Daily Rev. (Decatur, Illinois) 16 Nov. 1/3 (headline) Killing results from an after-theater, cocktail party.
1928 D. H. Lawrence Lady Chatterley's Lover vi. 67 She almost wished she had..made her life one long cocktail party and jazz evening.
1950 T. S. Eliot Cocktail Party i. i. 12 The only reason for a cocktail party For a gluttonous old woman like me Is a really nice tit-bit.
2014 S. Dharmapala Saree (2015) 383 His mother and sisters stumbled out dressed in clothes more suitable for a Bollywood cocktail party than an austere Hindu seminary graduation!
Compounds
General use as a modifier with the sense ‘of, relating to, characteristic of, or occurring at a cocktail party’; as in cocktail-party conversation, cocktail-party frock, etc.
ΚΠ
1934 Bradford (Pa.) Era 16 Feb. 8/5 The perfect cocktail party frock. It is of soft lustrous black satin.
1968 J. Ironside Fashion Alphabet 19 This highly useful garment [sc. the little black dress] was..[perfected] in the cocktail party era between 1920 and 1939.
1988 Toronto Star (Nexis) 2 Nov. a8 All those long-winded politicians, lawyers, cocktail party bores.
1991 Lancet 21 Dec. 1588/2 It's only natural for cocktail party conversation to focus on this topic.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2019; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1903