Meaning of Barmecide feast | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A meal with very little or no food
2. Something that promises much but delivers nothing; an illusion.

Examples

“[H]e decided that his loved one was on the point of starvation. No human being, he held, could exist on such Barmecide feasts.”

“Arthur Rimbaud, in a hotel dining room where, though indulging in a Barmecide feast before empty plates and glasses, he evinces the most evident signs of gastronomic enjoyment.”

CEFR level