Other forms: refreshments
Refreshment is food and drink taken to revive you. Take some refreshment, refreshments will be served, light refreshments.
The plural is much the commoner: refreshments are what is laid on at a meeting, a funeral or a village hall event, and light refreshments means tea and biscuits and no more. The singular is formal and slightly old-fashioned. Note that refreshment also means the act of reviving — the refreshment of sleep — which is the original sense, from making something fresh again.
1nounrefreshmentFood and drink taken to revive you.
“The walkers stopped at a farm café for refreshment before the last climb.”
2nounactThe act of being revived.
“After the long drive, a swim in the cool lake was a welcome refreshment.”
refreshment is food and drink, or reviving.
Old French refrescher is re- plus fresche, fresh, itself from a Germanic word. Refresh, fresh and the French frais come from the same freshness.
Old French
refrescher
Middle English
refreschement
English, today
refreshment
Built from
Recorded since 1665; either directly or via Middle English refreschement, from Old French refrescher (12th century; modern French rafraîchir), itself from re- (“again”) + fresche (“fresh”) (modern French frais; from a Germanic source, cognate with Old High German frisc, modern German frisch, Dutch fris, etc.)
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA