dinee

From dine +‎ -ee.

dinee (plural dinees)

1. (rare) One who is given a dinner.

   Coordinate term: diner

   • 1821, “On Collecting”, in The New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal, volume I, Original Papers, number III, London: Henry Colburn and Co. […], →OCLC, page 361:

     In the noble science of gastronomy, likewise, he who can not afford to collect a cellar of wines, and accumulate the rarities of distant climes and seasons, will make but little progress, For, though the diner and the dinee, the host and the guest, have similar sources open to them, yet the most practised parasite can not attain to the same regular course of study, as the Amphitryon Millionaire.

   • 1995, Chris Barker, “Episodic -ee in English: Thematic relations and new word formation”, in Mandy Simons, Teresa Galloway, editors, Proceedings from Semantics and Linguistic Theory, volume V, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University, Department of Linguistics, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 15:

     1994 The paella didn’t turn out very well, but fortunately my dinees were quite understanding.

   • 1998 August, Gregg Kilday, “To Live and Dine in LA”, in Spencer Beck, editor, Los Angeles Magazine, volume 43, number 8, Los Angeles, Calif.: Fairchild Publications, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 83, column 2:

     But since power itself is fleeting, the whole game of the right table at the right restaurant is ongoing. As the restaurants themselves rise and fall, so do the fortunes of the powerful who patronize them. The names of both diners and dinees is constantly in flux; the game remains the same. As Lewis Stone intoned in the 1932 classic Grand Hotel, a cautionary tale of the vicissitudes of fame and power, “People come, people go. Nothing ever happens.”

   • 2004, Will Jones, “Tina from New Mexico: Let Me Tell You ’bout This A**hole…”, in Let Me Tell You ’bout This…, Victoria, B.C.: Trafford Publishing, →ISBN, page 145:

     If I was broke, we’d just hang out at his place or my place looking at videos. This was very new and very different for me. Like I said, I’d been used to being wined and dined, you know, being the “dinee”. Is that a word? Anyway, now, I’m the “diner”. Does that make any sense? You know what I’m trying to say, right?

   • 2020, Elle Katharine White, “Matriculation”, in Jonathan Strahan, editor, The Book of Dragons: An Anthology, New York, N.Y.: Harper Voyager, →ISBN:

     The street outside was nearly empty, though it wouldn’t stay that way for long. The dinner crowds would be out soon, hawking their blood and other valuable living assets to the vitally challenged for tokens and textbooks and practical tips on how to pass Professor Boynya’s first alchemy exam. Both diners and dinees were waiting for the sun to slip behind the spindling brick façades of Pawn Row, but for now, Melee had the street to herself.