cabaret

Cabaret is recorded in French in the fifteenth century for a tavern or small inn. The form is linked to Picard cabaret, a northern French dialect word. It is also tied to Middle Dutch cabaret or cabarete, meaning an inn. The earliest sense is a place to drink and eat.

By the late nineteenth century in Paris, cabaret came to name a style of entertainment. Venues like Le Chat Noir in 1881 made the word famous. The meaning shifted from the room to the performance. The word carried the nightlife with it.

English adopted cabaret around the turn of the twentieth century. It kept the French spelling and sense of a show with music, comedy, and dance. The older tavern meaning did not survive in English. The term is now strongly tied to performance.

The word's history shows a move from place to act. It still suggests intimacy and a small stage. That is the old room speaking through a new form. The echo of the tavern remains in the feel of the genre.