masquerade.
An assembly or party of people wearing (usually elaborate or fanciful) masks and costumes, and amusing themselves with dancing, conversation, or other diversions.
Meaning & usage
An assembly or party of people wearing (usually elaborate or fanciful) masks and costumes, and amusing themselves with dancing, conversation, or other diversions.
I was invited to the masquerade at their home.
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.
Where this word comes from
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. The verb is derived from the noun.
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?
To pass oneself 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.
To appear as something else.
To conceal (someone) with, or as if with, a mask; to disguise.
Where this word comes from
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. The verb is derived from the noun.
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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.