Barmecidal


Also found in: Idioms.

Bar·me·cid·al

 (bär′mĭ-sīd′l) also Bar·me·cide (bär′mĭ-sīd′)
adj.
Plentiful or abundant in appearance only; illusory: a Barmecidal feast.
[After Barmecide, , a nobleman in The Arabian Nights, who served an imaginary feast to a beggar.]
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Bar•me•cid•al

(ˌbɑr məˈsaɪd l)

also Bar′me•cide`,



adj.
giving only the illusion of plenty; illusory: a Barmecidal banquet.
[1835–45; alluding to the Barmecides, a noble family in The Arabian Nights who served a feast with empty dishes to a beggar (< Persian Barmekī family name, literally, offspring of Barmek, with -ide -id1 for Persian -ī)]
Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.
Mentioned in ?
References in periodicals archive ?
She cannot get her mind around the idea of Nature, Barmecidal feast.
Traveling Underground: although she has been living at that address--an unpretentious five-story red-brick apartment building at 6 Gracie Square--for five years or more, to some period before the start of the war riots, her name has never been put on the doorplate and she has removed the electric bell for her door

Dictionary browser ?
Full browser ?