Category:Feast

Feast, n. Etym: [OE. feste festival, holiday, feast, OF. feste festival, F. fête, fr. L. festum, pl. festa, fr. festus joyful, festal; of uncertain origin. Cf. Fair, n., Festal, F.]

1. A festival; a holiday; a solemn, or more commonly, a joyous, anniversary. The seventh day shall be a feast to the Lord. Exodus 8:6. Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the passover. Luke 2:41.

Note: Ecclesiastical feasts are called immovable when they always occur on the same day of the year; otherwise they are called movable. See also: Liturgical Calendar.

2. A festive or joyous meal; a grand, ceremonious, or sumptuous entertainment, of which many guests partake; a banquet characterized by tempting variety and abundance of food. Enough is as good as a feast. Old Proverb. Belshazzar the King made a great feast to a thousand of his lords. Daniel 5:1.

3. That which is partaken of, or shared in, with delight; something highly agreeable; entertainment. The feast of reason, and the flow of soul. Pope. Feast day, a holiday; a day set as a solemn commemoration.

Syn. -- Entertainment; regale; banquet; treat; carousal; festivity; festival. -- Feast, Banquet, Festival, Carousal. A feast sets before us viands superior in quantity, variety, and abudance; a banquet is a luxurious feast; a festival is the joyful celebration by good cheer of some agreeable event. Carousal is unrestrained indulgence in frolic and drink.

feast Feast, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Feasted; p. pr. & vb. n. Feasting.] Etym: [OE. festen, cf. OF. fester to rest from work, F. fêter to celebrate a holiday. See Feast, n.]

1. To eat sumptuously; to dine or sup on rich provisions, particularly in large companies, and on public festivals. And his sons went and feasted in their houses. Job 1:4.

2. To be highly gratified or delighted. With my love's picture then my eye doth feast. Shak.

feast Feast, v. t.

1. To entertain with sumptuous provisions; to treat at the table bountifully; as, he was feasted by the king. Hayward.

2. To delight; to gratify; as, to feast the soul. Feast your ears with the music a while. Shak.

---excerpt from the Illustrated Bible Dictionary.

Feast - As a mark of hospitality (Genesis 19:3; 2 Samuel 3:20; 2 Kings 6:23); on occasions of domestic joy (Luke 15:23; Genesis 21:8); on birthdays (Genesis 40:20; Job 1:4; Matthew 14:6); and on the occasion of a marriage (Judges 14:10; Genesis 29:22). Feasting was a part of the observances connected with the offering up of sacrifices (Deuteronomy 12:6, Deuteronomy 12:7; 1 Samuel 9:19; 1 Samuel 16:3, 1 Samuel 16:5), and with the annual festivals (Deuteronomy 16:11). "It was one of the designs of the greater solemnities, which required the attendance of the people at the sacred tent, that the oneness of the nation might be maintained and cemented together, by stately congregating in one place, and with one soul taking part in the same religious services. But that oneness was primarily and chiefly a religious and not merely a political one; the people were not merely to meet as among themselves, but with Jehovah, and to present themselves before him as one body; the meeting was in its own nature a binding of themselves in fellowship with Jehovah; so that it was not politics and commerce that had here to do, but the soul of the Mosaic dispensation, the foundation of the religious and political existence of Israel, the covenant with Jehovah. To keep the people's consciousness alive to this, to revive, strengthen, and perpetuate it, nothing could be so well adapted as these annual feasts." (See FESTIVALS.)