ˈtea-ˌparty
1. A party assembled to take tea together; a social entertainment at which tea is taken.
| 1778 F. Burney Evelina (1791) I. xvi. 61 The arched recesses that are appropriated for tea-parties [at Ranelagh]. 1843 Thackeray Men's Wives, Mr. & Mrs. Berry ii, The Reverend Lemuel Whey is a tea-party man. 1851 D. Jerrold St. Giles xix. 196 As comfortable as any dowager at a tea-party. |
2. transf. (colloq. or slang.) a. Boston tea-party, a humorous name for the revolutionary proceeding in 1773, when the tea was thrown overboard from the ships in Boston harbour as a protest against the taxation of the American colonies by the British Government. b. A lively proceeding, a disturbance.
| 1864 Webster App., Names Fiction, Boston Tea-party. 1874 O. W. Holmes Ballad of Boston Tea-party 28 The storm broke loose, but first of all The Boston teapot bubbled! 1903 Westm. Gaz. 20 Jan. 9/2 An electrician's ‘tea-party’ is brought about by a short circuit... In particularly bad cases..explosions of the circuit breakers occur, and showers of molten copper, which often start fires, render the ‘tea-party’ of the liveliest description. |
c. A gathering at which marijuana is smoked. slang.
| 1944 War Med. VI. 383/2 Have you ever been on a ‘tea’ party? No? You've missed a sensation of a lifetime. 1956 J. Symons Paper Chase vii. 32 Used to give tea parties—marihuana. 1972 ‘J. Quartermain’ Rock of Diamond i. 7 Jane hadn't taken tea. She..gave no clue..as to what an inhibited Englishman should do at a midtown Manhattan tea-party. |
3. attrib. of attitudes, behaviour, etc., held to be typical of a tea-party; bland, insipid, trite, trivial.
| 1961 M. Beadle These Ruins are Inhabited (1963) ii. 28, I think he expected the boys to have..tea-party manners. 1962 [see penguin 2 c]. 1973 C. Mullard Black Britain ix. 105 Liberal do-gooders with a tea-party attitude towards race. |