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Charade   Listen
noun
Charade  n.  A verbal or acted enigma based upon a word which has two or more significant syllables or parts, each of which, as well as the word itself, is to be guessed from the descriptions or representations.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Charade" Quotes from Famous Books



... ate.) Catering. (Kate. Her ring.) Hero. (He row.) Tennessee. (Ten, I see.) The following are also good charade words: Knighthood, penitent, looking-glass, hornpipe, necklace, indolent, lighthouse, Hamlet, pantry, phantom, windfall, sweepstake, sackcloth, antidote, antimony, pearl powder, kingfisher, football, housekeeping, infancy, snowball, definite, bowstring, carpet, ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger

... foolish romantic play of no real significance. There are several murders and a good deal of artificial horror. But it is all a very nice and romantic piece of make-believe, like a charade. ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence

... mentioning the Archduke, in a poetical and highly-complimentary strain, with handsome allusions to the inevitable Quintus Curtius and Scipio Africanus. The concluding words of the speech were not spoken, but were taken as the cue for a splendid charade; the long-suffering Scipio again making his appearance, in company with Alexander and Hannibal; the group typifying the future government of Matthias. After each of these, heroic individuals had spouted a hundred lines ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... all her friends and acquaintances, or else she organizes a little soiree twice or thrice during the season. Fifty or sixty people, as many as her rooms will conveniently hold, are invited. The mistress of the house provides something in the way of some good amateur music, a charade or two acted in almost professional style, a bit of declamation, or possibly the presence of some literary or artistic lion. Everybody comes, and everybody tries to make himself or herself as agreeable as possible. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various

... which the philosophers were not wise enough. To make the princess cry was as impossible as to make her weigh. They sent for a professional beggar, commanded him to prepare his most touching oracle of woe, helped him out of the court charade box to whatever he wanted for dressing up, and promised great rewards in the event of his success. But it was all in vain. She listened to the mendicant artist's story, and gazed at his marvellous make up, till she could contain herself no longer, and went into the ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various

... we dine with the F——s, and there is to be a dance in the evening; on Wednesday I act Constance; Thursday there is a charade party at the M——s'; Friday I play Mrs. Beverley; and Monday and Wednesday next, Camiola. I hope by and by to act Camiola very well, but I am afraid the play itself can never become popular; the size of the theater and the public taste of the present day are both against such ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... me to cast a Sunday School charade into a play in six days, Vandeford?" was the storm of words hurled at him as the released and infuriated doctor of plays hurled himself and his sheaf of manuscript into the ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess

... under her simplicity. And Mr. Middleton answered very well by not trying to be comic. The main source of doubt and retardation had been Gwendolen's desire to appear in her Greek dress. No word for a charade would occur to her either waking or dreaming that suited her purpose of getting a statuesque pose in this favorite costume. To choose a motive from Racine was of no use, since Rex and the others could not declaim French verse, and improvised speeches would turn the ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... some countries is a kind of charade word, an anagram, a symbol representing an imaginary quantity, a password invented by unhappy men to express all that they do not possess; a term meaning in the minds of slaves a conglomerate of conditions so absurd, of aspirations so futile, ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford

... steel watch-chain, or an antimacassar. The musical set at the school, too, were busy rehearsing part songs for the evening's festivities, and the dramatic set were terribly immersed for a fortnight beforehand in the preparations for a grand charade. ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed

... he did not, as yet; but whatever is off-hand and young-mannish and modern enough to express to one's self without "sposhiness" an admiration and a preference like that, he undoubtedly did say. At any rate after his Christmas at Z—— with Arthur, and some charade parties they had then at Westover, and after Class Day, when everybody had been furious to get an introduction, and all the Spreadsplendid girls and their mothers had been wondering who that Miss Holabird was and where she came from, and ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... pity, it was so interesting! (Laughs.) You should have seen what manifestations we had! Well, how is our charade getting on? ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al

... behind aged chests and spinning-wheels, now robing themselves in the time-honored garments which had done duty for various ancestors of the Hapgood family, and exchanging visits of mock ceremony, or inviting Mrs. Hapgood up to witness a remarkable tableau or an impromptu charade. Piles of illustrated papers filled one corner, and, when all else failed, the children used to pore over the sensational pictures of the Civil War, dwelling with an especial interest on the scenes of death and carnage. In another corner was arranged a long row of old andirons, ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray

... for her old bonnets and dresses and umbrellas, and they spent the evening in trying on the various things,—such odd caps and remarkable bonnets! Solomon John said they ought to have plenty of bandboxes; if you only had bandboxes enough a charade was sure to go off well; he had seen charades in Boston. Mrs. Peterkin said there were plenty in their attic, and the little boys brought down piles of them, and the back parlor was ...
— The Peterkin Papers • Lucretia P Hale

... first and became the wife of my dear second," said Mrs. Badger, speaking of her former husbands as if they were parts of a charade, "I still enjoyed opportunities of observing youth. The class attendant on Professor Dingo's lectures was a large one, and it became my pride, as the wife of an eminent scientific man seeking herself in science the utmost consolation it could impart, to throw our ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... N. secret; dead secret, profound secret; arcanum[obs3], mystery; latency &c 526; Asian mystery[obs3]; sealed book, secrets of the prison house; le desous des cartes [Fr]. enigma, riddle, puzzle, nut to crack, conundrum, charade, rebus, logogriph[obs3]; monogram, anagram; Sphinx; crux criticorum[Lat]. maze, labyrinth, Hyrcynian wood; intricacy, meander. problem &c (question) 461; paradox &c (difficulty) 704; unintelligibility ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... you," said John, "don't wait for me. You have your Tuesdays, and go on with your Lecky; and I will keep a copy at home, and read up with you. And I will bring Lillie in the evening, after the reading is over; and we will have a little music and lively talk, and a dance or charade, you know: then perhaps her mind will wake ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... solved the poetical charade printed on page 639 of the July number, must have noticed that it is an unusually good one, and we are sure that all our readers will admire the charade, after comparing it with its solution, which we publish upon page ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... Lister, afterwards Lady Theresa Lewis, who edited Miss Berry's "Memoirs," Lord Lansdowne, and many others. Lady Davy came occasionally, and the Miss Fanshaws, who were highly accomplished, and good artists, besides Miss Catherine Fanshaw wrote clever vers de societe, such as a charade on the letter H, and, if I am not mistaken, "The Butterfly's Ball," &c. I visited these ladies, but their manners were so cold and formal that, though I admired their talents, I never became intimate with them. On the contrary, like everyone else, I loved Mary Berry, she was so warm-hearted and ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville

... also be berths taken in the Cunarder for a manager trained in the business side of journalism? Quite a fair way of putting the present case, although, on the other side, it is also fair to add that British Officers have usually had to play so many parts in the charade of square pegs in round holes, that they can catch a hold anywhere, at any time, ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton

... the framework, of Stello, ou Les Diables Bleus, requires very little amplification of its double title to explain it. Putting that title in charade form, one might say that its first is a young poet who suffers from its second—like many other young persons, poetical and unpoetical, of times Romantic and un-Romantic. Having an excessively bad fit of his complaint, he sends for a certain docteur ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... credit for more penetration, Norman," she replied. "I to mean such nonsense—I to avow a preference for any man! Can you have been so foolish as to think so? It was only a charade, ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)

... Enfant Terrible is that he or she causes profound embarrassment to the surrounding adults, the palm of pre-eminence must be assigned to the children of a famous diplomatist, who, some twenty years ago, organized a charade and performed it without assistance from their elders. The scene displayed a Crusader knight returning from the wars to his ancestral castle. At the castle gate he was welcomed by his beautiful and rejoicing wife, to whom, ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell

... to be plotting something,' said Reginald; 'a charade for to-night, perhaps. It's sure to be ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... charade, too, which was really unique," said Sibyl. "The first part was simply little Carrie Fish standing in the middle of the room; the second and last was audible, but not visible, consisting merely of a volley of sneezes behind the scenes. The whole was ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March

... competition." He was an acknowledged wit, and retailed compliments and cotton balls to the young ladies who visited his emporium. As a poet, too, his merits were universally known; for he had once contributed a poetic charade to the Ladies' Almanack. He, moreover, played delightfully on the Jews'-harp, knew several mysterious tricks in cards, and was an adept in the science of bread and butter-cutting, which made him a prodigious favourite with maiden aunts and side-table ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... the irony of things happening as they do; but will have fierce hatreds, and a kind of incipient madness in things. In When we Dead Awaken all the people are quite consciously insane, and act a kind of charade with perfectly solemn faces and a visible effort to look ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons

... took off his black cravat, turned down his shirt-collar, and advanced in an affected manner, resting his left arm on the shoulder of the youngest of his comrades, while with his right he pretended to caress his chin. Each person of the company understood the meaning of that kind of charade; and there were ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant

... The next charade was easier. Every one wrote "music" on his card, after the two acts in which plaintive mews floated up from the rocks and the Gibbs family were taken sick. All but Jim, who, in the high silk hat he had worn before, ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston

... that the spectator must invent for himself the allegory which he may choose to see embodied in this stony trio. It is not enough to be told the words of the charade,—Julian, Night, Morning. One can never spell out the meaning by putting together the group with the aid of such a key. Night is Night, obviously, because she is asleep. For an equally profound reason, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... is very neat and distinct for a boy of your age. In a Numerical Charade each figure represents a letter of the solution. Supposing the answer to be "America," you could make "car" from the sixth, seventh, and fourth letters, and proceed in this way until you had used ...
— Harper's Young People, March 16, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various



Words linked to "Charade" :   sendup, travesty, impersonation, takeoff, charades, burlesque, mockery, imitation, caricature, pasquinade, put-on, lampoon, parody, word



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