pageant
/ˈpadʒ(ə)nt
/noun
1A public entertainment consisting of a procession of people in elaborate, colourful costumes, or an outdoor performance of a historical scene: they brought the history books to life at the town’s pageant figurative the pageant of public life...
- Street pageants, parades and outdoor concerts have been lined-up to entertain locals and visitors and the street spectacular should not be missed for those who enjoy the magic of performance arts.
- They have produced full-scale scripted plays, but their outdoor pageants are the breathtaking highlight of the Public Dreams year.
- The festivities climax tomorrow in a royal state procession and a colourful pageant of music, dance and theatre.
Synonyms
parade, procession, cavalcade, scene, play, representation, tableau, tableau vivant;
display, spectacle, extravaganza, show
1.1Something regarded as a series of interesting and varied events: it’s all part of life’s rich pageant...
- In Morningside, by comparison, there are a blithe number of 80-year-olds for whom the next decade promises a rich pageant of Saga tours and constant cruises.
- I travel on the tube every day and there's an endless pageant of human experience down there; it's full of potential films.
- The human pageant has been filled with wrong turns, backsliding, and horrible crimes.
1.2 historical A scene erected on a fixed stage or moving vehicle as a public show.In 1576 actor James Burbage built London's first public theater, known simply as The Theatre, which was an open-air structure that combined features of pageant wagons, fixed stages, and banquet halls....
- Dublin's St Patrick's Festival parade takes place from noon on Wednesday when 3,500 performers will thrill spectators with a stream of ingeniously designed pageants.
- Blocking of major city roads during peak hours and uninhibited use of loud speakers and other accessories for the pageants have raised a hue and cry among the public.
2 (also beauty pageant) North American A beauty contest.The celebrations in Samokov also included a contest between Roma orchestras, a beauty pageant and a football tournament....
- Unlike a traditional beauty pageant the contest is a talent showcase.
- Years ago I had a friend who was a beauty pageant contestant.
Origin
Late Middle English pagyn, of unknown origin.
This word had two meanings in Middle English, either a religious play or the moveable platform on which it was performed. It seems to have come via Anglo-Norman from Latin pagina, the source of page, but there is some debate as to how the meaning has changed. It may be from the idea that a play is performed from something written in a manuscript, or it may go back to the Latin source of pagina, pangere ‘to fasten’, referring to the putting together of the temporary stage. The modern sense of a showy parade is not found before the early 19th century.
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