repast

English

Etymology

Old French repast, from the verb repaistre, from Latin repascere, from pascere (“to graze”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɹɪˈpɑːst/

  • Audio (UK)

    (file)

• (US, Northern England) IPA^(key): /ɹɪˈpæst/

Noun

repast (countable and uncountable, plural repasts)

1. (now literary) A meal.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book 5”, in Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […], OCLC 228722708; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554:

     From dance to sweet repast they turn.

   • 1908, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

     When at last they were thoroughly toasted, the Badger summoned them to the table, where he had been busy laying a repast.

   • 2010, Pseudonymous Bosch, This Isn't What It Looks Like

     "'Tis true, tonight I ate my last of the royal repast."

2. (archaic, uncountable) The food eaten at a meal.
   • c. 1590–1592, William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act IV, scene iii], page 223:

     I prethee go, and get me ſome repaſt, / I care not what, ſo it be holſome foode.

Translations

literary: a meal

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 餐宴 (cānyàn)

• Dutch: maaltijd (nl) m
• German: Mahl (de) n
• Ido: repasto (io)

• Irish: séire m or f
• Spanish: condumio (es), pitanza (es), refacción, refección

Verb

repast (third-person singular simple present repasts, present participle repasting, simple past and past participle repasted)

1. (obsolete, transitive) To supply food to; to feast.
   • c. 1599–1602, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act IV, scene v]:

     Repast them with my blood.

2. (obsolete, intransitive) To take food.
   • 1644, John Milton, Areopagitica; a Speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Vnlicenc’d Printing, to the Parlament of England, London: [s.n.], OCLC 879551664:

     He then, also, as before, left arbitrary the dieting and repasting of our minds.

Anagrams

• Paster, Pearts, paster, paters, petars, prates, pretas, repats, retaps, tapers, trapes, treaps

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Old French

Noun

repast m (oblique plural repaz or repatz, nominative singular repaz or repatz, nominative plural repast)

1. a meal
   • circa 1170, Wace, Le Roman de Rou:

     Mez li Dus ne vout prendre ne disner ne repast.

     But the Duke didn't want to eat dinner or any other meal.

Descendants

• → English: repast
• French: repas