cabaret

[ kab-uh-rey kab-uh-ret ]

noun

1. a restaurant providing food, drink, music, a dance floor, and often a floor show.
2. a caf é that serves food and drink and offers entertainment often of an improvisatory, satirical, and topical nature.

   Synonyms: club, supper club, nightclub

3. a floor show consisting of such entertainment:

   The cover charge includes dinner and a cabaret.

4. a form of theatrical entertainment, consisting mainly of political satire in the form of skits, songs, and improvisations:

   an actress whose credits include cabaret, TV, and dinner theater.

5. a decoratively painted porcelain coffee or tea service with tray, produced especially in the 18th century.
6. Archaic. a shop selling wines and liquors.

verb (used without object)

, cab·a·reted [kab-, uh, -, reyd], cab·a·ret·ing [kab-, uh, -, rey, -ing].

1. to attend or frequent cabarets.

cabaret

/ ˈkæbəˌreɪ /

noun

1. a floor show of dancing, singing, or other light entertainment at a nightclub or restaurant
2. a nightclub or restaurant providing such entertainment

Word History and Origins

Origin of cabaret¹

1625–35; < French: tap-room, Middle French dial. ( Picard or Walloon) < Middle Dutch, denasalized variant of cambret, cameret < Picard camberete small room (cognate with French chambrette; chamber, -ette )

Word History and Origins

Origin of cabaret¹

C17: from Norman French: tavern, probably from Late Latin camera an arched roof, chamber

Example Sentences

What follows are scenes out of a movie melodrama — helpless poverty, horrific exploitation, routine brushes with violence and near-death escapes — performed under the guise of a karaoke cabaret.

From Los Angeles Times

Teifi, who describes androgynous Anniben as a "drag thing", said their performances were conceptual and unlike the cabaret style performances typical of drag queens.

From BBC

You see the cabaret culture in France is mostly biological females.

From Los Angeles Times

She’s glad to see him, too, but as is so often the case with cabaret chanteuses in quayside bars, she awaits her true love, the father of her young boy.

From New York Times

She’s also the owner of Oasis, one of the country’s largest drag cabarets.

From Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• disco