tea party (teparti)

An entertainment at which tea and other refreshments are served; also, the persons a embling at such an entertainment. But though our worthy ancestors were thus singularly averse to giving dinners, yet they kept up the social bands of intimacy by occasional banquetings, called tea - parties . Irving , Knickerbocker, p. 169. Boston tea-party, a humorous name given to a revolutionary proceeding at Boston, December 16th, 1773, in protest against the tax upon tea imposed by the British government on the American colonies. About fifty men in the disguise of Indians boarded the tea-ships in the harbor, and threw the tea overboard.