symposiast

From the Ancient Greek συμποσιαστής (sumposiastḗs, “a fellow-drinker; a boon-companion”), from συμπόσιον (sumpósion), whence symposium.

symposiast (plural symposiasts)

1. (archaic) Someone participating at a banquet or drinking party.
   • 1842 September 11 Sydney Smith "Letter to Lady Day" in A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith, Volume 2 (1855; London: Longman, Brown, Green) p.469, No.478:

     Lady ――― is tolerably well, with two courses and a French cook. She has fitted up her lower rooms in a very pretty style, and there receives the shattered remains of the symposiasts of the house.

2. A participant in a symposium.
   • 1997, Carl F. Cranor, “A Philosophy of Risk Assessment and the Law: A Case Study of the Role of Philosophy in Public Policy” in Philosophical Studies LXXXV, № 2/3, page 135:

     I can begin to speak to some of these issues and to the charge given the symposiasts by referencing some of my own work which for more than a decade addressed issues in or on the edge of one major public policy debate.

• symposiastic

• “symposiast”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.