A gask, or gasque, is a kind of Swedish

student A student is a person enrolled in a school or other educational institution, or more generally, a person who takes a special interest in a subject. In the United Kingdom and most The Commonwealth, commonwealth countries, a "student" attends ...

party A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a Hospitality, host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration or celebration of a special occasion. A party will oft ...

which starts with a more or less

formal dinner Dinner usually refers to what is in many Western cultures the biggest and most formal meal of the day. Historically, the largest meal used to be eaten around noon, midday, and called dinner. Especially among the elite, it gradually migrated to ...

. The word is believed to have originated from the card game Vira, popular in the 19th century.

Background

In some cities, gask is generally used to refer to a party with a formal dress code. Students at

Stockholm University Stockholm University (SU) () is a public university, public research university in Stockholm, Sweden, founded as a college in 1878, with university status since 1960. With over 33,000 students at four different faculties: law, humanities, social ...

and the

Royal Institute of Technology KTH Royal Institute of Technology (), abbreviated KTH, is a public research university in Stockholm, Sweden. KTH conducts research and education in engineering and technology and is Sweden's largest technical university. Since 2018, KTH consist ...

generally use the term gasque to refer to a gask where the dress code is a

student boilersuit Student boilersuit (Swedish ''studentoverall'' or ''studenthalare'', Finnish ''opiskelijahaalari, Canadian flightsuit'' ''or coveralls or redsuits'') are boilersuits widely used for specific events at University, universities and institute of tech ...

. In some cases, gasque might also be the name of an actual building, often a building belonging to the

student union A students' union or student union, is a student organization present in many colleges, universities, and high schools. In higher education, the students' union is often accorded its own building on the campus, dedicated to social, organizatio ...

arranging the gasque, as in the case of

Chalmers University of Technology Chalmers University of Technology (, commonly referred to as Chalmers) is a private university, private research university located in Gothenburg, Sweden. Chalmers focuses on engineering and science, but more broadly it also conducts research ...

Gothenburg Gothenburg ( ; ) is the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, second-largest city in Sweden, after the capital Stockholm, and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated by the Kattegat on the west coast of Sweden, it is the gub ...

. Many universities also have thematic gasques, as well as slasques (pun on "slask", 'slush, slop'), which are less tidy gatherings.

References

Student culture Culture of Sweden {{sweden-stub