Meaning

noun dessert made of sweetened milk coagulated with rennet

noun a journey taken for pleasure

noun a trip taken by an official at public expense

originFrom Middle English jonket (“basket made of rushes”), from Medieval Latin iuncta, possibly from Latin iuncus (“rush, reed”) and therefore a possible doublet of jonquil. Meaning shifted to “feast or banquet” by 1520s, probably via the notion of a picnic basket. This in turn led to the sense of “pleasure trip” (1814), and then to specifically to “trip made ostensibly for business but which entails…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0