Barmecide feast

English Etymology From a tale in the Arabian Nights in which a rich man serves a beggar an imaginary banquet; see Barmecide. Noun A meal with very little or no food en w:P.G. Wodehouse 8 Something Fresh London Hutchinson 1915 122 [H]e decided that his loved one was on the point of starvation. No human being, he held, could exist on such Barmecide feasts. en Milton H Stansbury The Surrealists French Novelists of Today University of Pennsylvania Press 1935 121-136 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. Something that promises much but delivers nothing; an illusion. Related terms en barmecidal