masquerade

Meanings

Noun

• An assembly or party of people wearing (usually elaborate or fanciful) masks and costumes, and amusing themselves with dancing, conversation, or other diversions.
• The act of wearing a mask or dressing up in a costume for, or as if for, a masquerade ball.
• 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.
• An assembly of varied, often fanciful, things.
• A cosplay event at which costumed attendees perform skits.
• A dramatic performance by actors in masks; a mask or masque.
• A Spanish entertainment or military exercise in which squadrons of horses charge at each other, the riders fighting with bucklers and canes.

Verb

• To take part in a masquerade; to assemble in masks and costumes; to wear a disguise.
• 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.
• To conceal (someone) with, or as if with, a mask; to disguise.

Origin

• The noun is borrowed from Middle French mascarade, masquarade, masquerade (modern French mascarade), and its etymon Italian mascherata, from maschera + -ata. Maschera is derived from Medieval Latin masca: see further there. The English word is cognate with Late Latin masquarata, Portuguese mascarada, Spanish mascarada.
• The verb is derived from the noun.