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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

carnival.

Any of a number of festivals held just before the beginning of Lent.

8 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈkɑːnɪvəl/Received-Pronunciation[ˈkɑːnɪvl̩]Received-Pronunciation/ˈkɑɹnɪvəl/General-American[ˈkɑɹnɪvl̩]General-American

  1. Any of a number of festivals held just before the beginning of Lent.

    Carnival of Brazil
    Venice Carnival

  2. A festive occasion marked by parades and sometimes special foods and other entertainment.

  3. A traveling amusement park, called a funfair in British English.

    US
    We all got to ride the merry-go-round when they brought their carnival to town.
    When the carnival came to town, every one wanted some cotton candy.

  4. A context in which transgression or inversion of the social order is given temporary license. Derived from the work of Mikhail Bakhtin.

  5. A gaudily chaotic situation.

    figuratively
    a carnival of idiocy
Where this word comes from

From Middle French carnaval, from Italian carnevale, possibly from the Latin phrase carnem levāmen (“meat dismissal”). Other scholars suggest Latin carnuālia (“meat-based country feast”) or carrus nāvālis (“boat wagon; float”) instead. Doublet of carnaval.

verb/ˈkɑːnɪvəl/Received-Pronunciation[ˈkɑːnɪvl̩]Received-Pronunciation/ˈkɑɹnɪvəl/General-American[ˈkɑɹnɪvl̩]General-American

  1. To participate in a carnival.

    informal · rare

  2. To move about playfully or wildly.

    literary
Where this word comes from

From Middle French carnaval, from Italian carnevale, possibly from the Latin phrase carnem levāmen (“meat dismissal”). Other scholars suggest Latin carnuālia (“meat-based country feast”) or carrus nāvālis (“boat wagon; float”) instead. Doublet of carnaval.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.