different between guest vs potluck

English

Etymology

From Middle English gest, from Old Norse gestr, which replaced or was merged with Old English ?iest, both from Proto-Germanic *gastiz, from Proto-Indo-European *g?óstis (“stranger, guest, host, someone with whom one has reciprocal duties of hospitality”). Cognate with German Gast (“guest”). Doublet of host, from Latin.

Pronunciation

• enPR: g?st, IPA^(key): /??st/
• Rhymes: -?st
• Homophone: guessed

Noun

guest (plural guests)

1. A recipient of hospitality, especially someone staying by invitation at the house of another.
2. A patron or customer in a hotel etc.

3. An invited visitor or performer to an institution or to a broadcast.

4. (computing) A user given temporary access to a system despite not having an account of their own.
5. (zoology) Any insect that lives in the nest of another without compulsion and usually not as a parasite.
6. (zoology) An inquiline.

Translations

Verb

guest (third-person singular simple present guests, present participle guesting, simple past and past participle guested)

1. (intransitive) to appear as a guest, especially on a broadcast
2. (intransitive) as a musician, to play as a guest, providing an instrument that a band/orchestra does not normally have in its line up (for instance, percussion in a string band)
3. (transitive, obsolete) To receive or entertain hospitably.
   • 1608, Josuah Sylvester, Du Bartas his divine weekes and workes

     Two Angels sent Two Heav'nly Scowts the Lord to Sodom sent ; downe , received and guested

Translations

Derived terms

Anagrams

• tegus

English

Etymology

From pot +? luck. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, sense 3 (“a shared meal consisting of whatever guests have brought”) is unlikely to have been influenced by potlatch even though it has the same meaning.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?p?t?l?k/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?p?t?l?k/, /-?l?k/, /?p?t?l?k/
• Rhymes: -?k (some pronunciations)
• Hyphenation: pot?luck

Noun

potluck (countable and uncountable, plural potlucks) (also attributively)

1. (dated) A meal, especially one offered to a guest, consisting of whatever food is available.
2. (by extension) Whatever is available in a particular situation.
3. (originally Canada, US) A shared meal consisting of whatever guests have brought (sometimes without prior arrangement); a potlatch; also, a dish of food brought to such a meal.

   Synonym: (Britain, dialectal) fuddle
4. (obsolete) The last draft or portion of an alcoholic beverage in a pot or other drinking vessel.

Usage notes

Sense 3 of the term is widespread in American English, though the Dictionary of American Regional English finds that it is less common in the South, the Mid-Atlantic states, and New York than elsewhere.

Alternative forms

• pot luck
• pot-luck

Translations

See also

• brown bag

References

Further reading

• potluck on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• John S[tephen] Farmer; W[illiam] E[rnest] Henley, compilers and editors (1902) , “Pot-luck”, in Slang and Its Analogues Past and Present: […], volume V (N. to Razzle-dazzle), London: Printed for subscribers only, OCLC 220990342, pages 273–274.
• potluck in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• “potluck”, in Merriam–Webster Online Dictionary, (Please provide a date or year).
• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “potluck”, in Online Etymology Dictionary

Anagrams

• putlock