What does “feast” mean in English?
Easter Food Traditions In Italy And Slovenia
B1 English listening practice · American English · Picked for people who know some
Rick Steves opens with “a time of family and feasting.” A feast is a big celebratory meal tied to a holiday or special occasion, and the same word works as a verb: you feast on roast lamb. It shows up in set phrases too, like a movable feast and feast your eyes on (to enjoy looking at something).
The episode is a tour of Easter feasts: in Italy’s Marche, troubadours are welcomed with cheese, salami, and wine; in Slovenia, families bless baskets of symbolic foods, including potica, the walnut-and-honey Easter bread shaped to recall a crown of thorns. Learn feast and you’ve got the key word for celebrations across English.
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Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · SUBTLEX-US 2012 (spoken). These numbers are close, not perfect.
- ▸Around holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter
- ▸In the idioms feast your eyes and a feast for the senses
- ▸On travel and food shows like Rick Steves' Europe
- ▸In the proverb “feast or famine” about boom-and-bust times
- ▸In religious contexts, where a feast day honours a saint or event