masquerade

Meanings

1. An assembly or party of people wearing (usually elaborate or fanciful) masks and costumes, and amusing themselves with dancing, conversation, or other diversions.
2. The act of wearing a mask or dressing up in a costume for, or as if for, a masquerade ball.
3. 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.
4. An assembly of varied, often fanciful, things.
5. A cosplay event at which costumed attendees perform skits.
6. A dramatic performance by actors in masks; a mask or masque.
7. A Spanish entertainment or military exercise in which squadrons of horses charge at each other, the riders fighting with bucklers and canes.

1. To take part in a masquerade; to assemble in masks and costumes; (loosely) to wear a disguise.
2. 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.
3. To conceal (someone) with, or as if with, a mask; to disguise.

Etymology

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.