Definition of "masquerade"

masquerade

/ˌmæskəˈɹeɪd/

noun
plural masquerades
1. An assembly or party of people wearing (usually elaborate or fanciful) masks and costumes, and amusing themselves with dancing, conversation, or other diversions.
  Quotations
  What guards the purity of melting Maids, / In courtly Balls and midnight Maſquerades, / Safe from the treach'rous friend, and daring ſpark, / The glance by day, the whiſper in the dark; / [...] / 'Tis but their Sylph, the wiſe Celeſtials know, / Tho' Honour is the word with Men below.
  1714, Alexander Pope, “The Rape of the Lock”, in The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope, volume I, London: […] W[illiam] Bowyer, for Bernard Lintot, […], published 1717, canto I, page 125
2. The act of wearing a mask or dressing up in a costume for, or as if for, a masquerade ball.
3. (figuratively) An act of living under false pretenses; a concealment of something by a false or unreal show; a disguise, a pretence; also, a pretentious display.
  Quotations
  Verres in the youth of Cicero, Catiline and Clodius in his middle age, Mark Antony in his old age, have all been left to operate on the modern reader's feelings precisely through that masquerade of misrepresentation which invariably accompanied the political eloquence of Rome.
  1842 July, [Thomas de Quincey], “Cicero”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume LII, number CCCXXI, Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood & Sons, […], page 2, column 1
4. (figuratively) An assembly of varied, often fanciful, things.
5. (fandom slang) A cosplay event at which costumed attendees perform skits.
6. (obsolete) A dramatic performance by actors in masks; a mask or masque.
7. (obsolete, rare) A Spanish entertainment or military exercise in which squadrons of horses charge at each other, the riders fighting with bucklers and canes.
verb
third-person singular simple present masquerades, present participle masquerading, simple past and past participle masqueraded
1. (intransitive) To take part in a masquerade; to assemble in masks and costumes; (loosely) to wear a disguise.
  Quotations
  There was a Freak took an Aſs in the Head, to Scoure abroad on the Ramble; and away he goes into the Woods, Maſquerading up and down in a Lyon's Skin.
  1692, Roger L’Estrange, “[The Fables of Anianus, &c.] Fab[le] CCXXIV. An Ass in a Lyon’s Skin.”, in Fables, of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists: […], London: […] R[ichard] Sare, […], page 196
2. (intransitive, figuratively) To pass off as a different person or a person with qualities that one does not possess; also, to make a pretentious show of being what one is not.
  Quotations
  Ethan Hunt, the human missile of American intelligence that Tom Cruise has been popping back in to play for more than 20 years now, is masquerading as a mysterious terrorist, the perfectly named John Lark, to buy back some plutonium he’s lost to a cabal of doomsday extremists.
  2018 July 25, A. A. Dowd, “Fallout may be the Most Breathlessly Intense Mission: Impossible Adventure Yet”, in The A.V. Club‎, archived from the original on 31 July 2018
3. (transitive, rare) To conceal (someone) with, or as if with, a mask; to disguise.

Definition of "masquerade"

masquerade

noun

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Quotations

verb

Quotations

Quotations