No human being, he held, could exist on such Barmecide feasts.

With the best will in the world, I say, it can be but a Barmecide feast.'

A Barmecide feast, sir, I am afraid,' said Jack. '

A critic was one who "sits down to a Barmecide feast, to see, to smell, but not to taste the celestial manna vouchsafed by the gods."

The procession next time along the top corridor was formidable: a kind of barmecide feast of invalid diet as well as jugs, bowls, bandages and clothes, towels, ointment and a small wooden bathtub

To the admirers of cities it is a Barmecide Feast: a pleasant field for the imagination to rove in; a monument raised to a deceased project, with not even a legible inscription to record its departed greatness.

JANE EYRE: GLOSSARY BARMECIDE FEAST An unsatisfying meal.

The power of the Barmakids in those times is reflected in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights; the vizier Ja'far appears in several stories, as well as a tale that gave rise to the expression "Barmecide feast".