masquerade

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English

WOTD – 9 October 2020

Etymology

People in masquerade (sense 2) at the Carnival of Venice in Venice, Italy, in 2015

The noun is borrowed from Middle French mascarade, masquarade, masquerade (modern French mascarade (“masquerade, masque; farce”)), and its etymon Italian mascherata (“masquerade”), from maschera (“mask”) + -ata. Maschera is derived from Medieval Latin masca (“mask”): see further there. The English word is cognate with Late Latin masquarata, Portuguese mascarada, Spanish mascarada.[1]

The verb is derived from the noun.[2]

Pronunciation

Noun

masquerade (plural masquerades) (also attributively)

  1. An assembly or party of people wearing (usually elaborate or fanciful) masks and costumes, and amusing themselves with dancing, conversation, or other diversions.
    Synonym: (obsolete) masque
    I was invited to the masquerade party at their home.
    • 1714, Alexander Pope, “The Rape of the Lock”, in The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope, volume I, London: W Bowyer, for Bernard Lintot, , published 1717, →OCLC, canto I, page 125:
      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.
  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.
  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.

Alternative forms

Derived terms

Translations

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Translations to be checked

See also

Verb

masquerade (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.
    I’m going to masquerade as an old-fashioned pilot. What are you going to dress up as?
  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.
    He masqueraded as my friend until the truth finally came out.
    • 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:
      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.
  3. (transitive, rare) To conceal (someone) with, or as if with, a mask; to disguise.

Derived terms

Translations

References

  1. ^ “masquerade, n. and adj.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, December 2000; “masquerade, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
  2. ^ “masquerade, v.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, December 2000; “masquerade, v.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

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