party
UK /ˈpɑːti/ · US /ˈpɑɹti/ noun, verb, adverb, adjective
Forms parties partying partied
- noun (law) A person or group of people constituting one side in a legal proceeding, such as in a legal action or a contract. “The contract requires that the party of the first part pay the fee.”
- noun (dated, slang, vulgar or humorous) A person; an individual. “He is a queer party.”
- noun With to: someone who takes part in an action or affair; an accessory. “I can't possibly be (a) party to that kind of reckless behaviour.”
- noun (now rare in general sense) A group of people forming one side in a given dispute, contest, etc., or united in maintaining a cause, policy, or opinion in opposition to others; a faction.
- noun (politics) A political group considered as a formal whole, usually organized on a national basis, which contests elections and aims to form or take part in a government; a political party. “The green party took 12% of the vote.”
- noun (with the and capital initial) The Communist Party, especially as the sole political party of a communist state.
- noun (dated, now rare) The feeling of solidarity with and support for one's political party; partisanship, especially in political matters.
- noun (roleplaying games, online gaming) Active player characters organized into a single group.
- verb (intransitive) To celebrate at a party, to have fun, to enjoy oneself. “We partied until the early hours.”
- verb (intransitive, slang, euphemistic) To take recreational drugs.
- verb (intransitive) To engage in flings, to have one-night stands, to sow one's wild oats.
- verb (online gaming, intransitive) To form a party (with). “If you want to beat that monster, you should party with a healer.”
- adverb (obsolete) Partly.
- adjective (heraldry) Divided into parts of different tinctures, usually equal, and especially following the lines of one of the ordinaries. “an escutcheon party per pale”
- adjective (of a fence or wall, rare) Shared by two properties and serving to divide them.
- adjective Favoring one party; partisan.
Synonyms
bash do rave blowout gala get-together knees-up partay shindig shivoo political party company
Etymology
From Middle English party, partye, partie, from Anglo-Norman partie, from Old French partie (“side, part; portion, share; separation, division”, literally “that which is divided”), noun use of feminine of past participle of Old French partir (“to divide, separate”), from Latin partire (“to share, part, distribute, divide”), from pars (“a part, piece, a share”); see also part. First attested in c. 1300. Doublet of partita. The sense of communist party of a communist state derives Russian партия (partija), short for Коммунистическая партия (Kommunističeskaja partija). By surface analysis, part + -y (“noun suffix”).
From Middle English party, from Old French parti (“parted”), from Latin partītus (“parted”), past participle of partiō (“to divide”). More at part.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A part or portion. [Obs.] "The most party of the time." Chaucer.
- noun A number of persons united in opinion or action, as distinguished from, or opposed to, the rest of a community or association; esp., one of the parts into which a people is divided on questions of public policy.
- adjective Parted or divided, as in the direction or form of one of the ordinaries; as, an escutcheon party per pale.
- adjective Partial; favoring one party.
Etymology [F. parti and partie, fr. F. partir to part, divide, L. partire, partiri. See Part, v.]
Etymology [F. parti divided, fr. partir to divide. See Part, v., and cf. Partite.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “party”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details