MASQUERADE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Masquerade

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/mˌæskərˈeɪd/ Listen

noun

Masquerade n.

An assembly of persons wearing masks, and amusing themselves with dancing, conversation, or other diversions. "In courtly balls and midnight masquerades."

A dramatic performance by actors in masks; a mask. See 1st Mask, 4. (Obs.)

Acting or living under false pretenses; concealment of something by a false or unreal show; pretentious show; disguise. "That masquerade of misrepresentation which invariably accompanied the political eloquence of Rome."

A Spanish diversion on horseback.

verb

Masquerade v. t. To conceal with masks; to disguise. "To masquerade vice."

Masquerade v. i. (past & past part. masqueraded; pres. part. masquerading)

To assemble in masks; to take part in a masquerade.

To frolic or disport in disquise; to make a pretentious show of being what one is not. "A freak took an ass in the head, and he goes into the woods, masquerading up and down in a lion's skin."

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Etymology of 'Masquerade'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Masquerade" Quotes from Famous Books

... Club was to give a prize masquerade ball at the Palace Garden on New Year's Night, and Hefty had decided to go. Every gentleman dancer was to get a white silk badge with a gold tassel, and every committeeman received a blue badge with "Committee" written across it in brass ...

— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis

... form the slightest idea of the bodily ecstasy it gives me to have done with that horrible masquerade in mummy clothes," exclaimed my companion as we left the house. "To think this is the first time we have actually been ...

— Equality • Edward Bellamy

... whom Polidori met in Milan in 1816: 'Colonel Finch, an extremely pleasant, good-natured, well-informed, clever gentleman, spoke Italian extremely well, and was very well read in Italian literature. A ward of his gave a masquerade in London upon her coming of age. She gave to each a character in the reign of Queen Elizabeth to support, without the knowledge of each other; and received them in a saloon in proper style as Queen ...

— Adonais • Shelley

... when I say that no adventure is complete unless it necessitates an amount of ceremonial, the wearing of wigs, high bodices, stockings, and breeches? Every one likes to dress himself up, whether for a masquerade ball or to be enrolled in some strange order. Have you, reader, ever seen any one enrolled in any of these orders? If you have, you will excuse the little comedy and believe it to be natural—the comedy that Doris and ...

— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore

... the bottom of this business of democratic government, and found out that it was nothing more than government of any other kind. She might have known it by her own common sense, but now that experience had proved it, she was glad to quit the masquerade; to return to the true democracy of life, her paupers and her prisons, her schools and her hospitals. As for Mr. Ratcliffe, she felt no difficulty in dealing ...

— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams

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