Definition of "junket"

I love your meads, and I love your flowers, / And I love your junkets mainly [...].

1818, John Keats, Where be ye going, you Devon maid?

[…] though bride and bridegroom wantsFor to supply the places at the table,You know there wants no junkets at the feast.

c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act III, scene ii]

Goe streight, and take with thee to witnesse it / Sixe of thy fellowes of the best array, / And beare with you both wine and juncates fit, / And bid him eate […] .

1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie

Conversation is the natural Junket of the Mind ; and most Men have an Appetite to it, once in the day at least [...].

1790, Ambrose Philips, The free-thinker, volume III, number 124, page 95

An entertainment reporter who is a member of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association said Freeman made comments about her skirt and her legs during two different junkets.

2018, An Phung and Chloe Melas,"Women accuse Morgan Freeman of inappropriate behavior, harassment", CNN entertainment, May 24, 2018

Be careful that you wast not, or spoil your Ladies, or Mistresses goods, neither sit you up junketing a nights, after your Master and Mistress be abed.

1677, Hannah Woolley, The Compleat Servant-Maid‎, London: T. Passinger, page 2

Iob’s Children junketted and feasted together often, but the Reckoning cost them dear at last.

1688, Robert South, Sermon preached on 8 April, 1688, in Twelve Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions. The Second Volume, London: Thomas Bennet, p. 414

’Tis better than lying abed half the day, and junketing and card-playing all the night, and makeing yourselves wholly useless to every good purpose in your own families, as is now the fashion among ye […]

1748, [Samuel Richardson], “Letter XXXII”, in Clarissa. Or, The History of a Young Lady: […], volume I, London: […] S[amuel] Richardson; […], page 218

After they had built their water-house and laid their pipes, it occurred to them that the place was suitable for junketing. Once entertained, with jovial magistrates and public funds, the idea led speedily to accomplishment; and Edinburgh could soon boast of a municipal Pleasure House.

1879, Robert Louis Stevenson, chapter 10, in Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes‎, London: Seeley, Jackson & Halliday, page 38

Together they made trips to town or junketed over the country in search of furniture and dishes of which Miss Sally had heard.

1910, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Miss Sally’s Letter‎

It is only by much junketing about that one comes to the full realization of what men and women in the main are doing in this country. One learns as he passes from town to town, through cities and across plains, that the general reason for industry everywhere is to get the means to build and support a home.

1921, Ida Tarbell, “The Socialization of the Home”, in The Business of Being a Woman‎, New York: Macmillan

It was her belief that the summer folk went junketing off with the first fall of autumn leaves, leaving their cats to starve.

1943, Patrick Quentin, “The Last of Mrs. Maybrick”, in Marc Gerald, editor, Murder Plus: True Crime Stories from the Masters of Detective Fiction‎, New York: Pharos, published 1992, page 214

On the boat I met an old art history professor, with whom I junketed around for a while, visiting museums in London and Paris […]

1985, Herman Wouk, chapter 81, in Inside, Outside‎, New York: Avon, published 1986, page 549