Reception, for example, which in the ordinary world means a rather dull and formal sort of party

The prison words never ceased to amuse. Reception, for example, which in the ordinary world means a rather dull and formal sort of party, was the broom cupboard already described. Court was a police court, not Buckingham Palace. Wing, such a beautiful word, meant a section of the vile prison. 

D. Mosley, A life of contrasts (1978), loc. 2,936

This is not how I think of any of these words.