masquerade

noun

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mas·quer·ade | \ ˌma-skə-ˈrād

Definition of masquerade

(Entry 1 of 2)

1a : a social gathering of persons wearing masks and often fantastic costumes

b : a costume for wear at such a gathering

2 : an action or appearance that is mere disguise or show

masquerade

verb

masqueraded; masquerading

Definition of masquerade (Entry 2 of 2)

intransitive verb

1a : to disguise oneself also : to go about disguised

b : to take part in a masquerade

2 : to assume the appearance of something one is not

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Examples of masquerade in a Sentence

Noun She could not keep up the masquerade any longer. although she was deeply bored, she maintained a masquerade of polite interest as her guest droned on Verb He was masquerading under a false name.

Recent Examples on the Web: Noun The controversial Mystic Krewe of Nyx held its annual Carnival masquerade ball in a Biloxi, Mississippi, casino hotel on Saturday night. — Doug Maccash | Staff Writer, NOLA.com, "After Nyx Mardi Gras krewe holds ball in Biloxi, New Orleans City Hall calls for quarantine," 25 Jan. 2021 And his work neither expresses nor shows solidarity with racist ideologies of any kind but instead explores issues of violence, self-concealment and masquerade. — Eric Gibson, WSJ, "Going, Going, Guston," 30 Sep. 2020 But this is a masquerade, one that conceals hidden trauma. — Timothy Aubry, The New Republic, "Nicole Krauss’s Difficult Men," 17 Dec. 2020 Last year, the headquarters office in San Jose, California, rented a football stadium for a glitzy, Venetian-style masquerade ball and provided free childcare for parents. — Anne Quito, Quartz at Work, "Who’s ready for a 29-hour virtual office party?," 16 Dec. 2020 Of course, Joe and Jerry are also motivated to perpetuate their masquerade by that oldest of drives: plain old lust. — Peter Tonguette, WSJ, "Life-or-Death Laughter," 9 Oct. 2020 Or the reckless ecstasy of unhinged saccharine and homemade masquerade that is Halloween in the hood that gave me permission to reimagine myself. — Junauda Petrus-nasah, Star Tribune, "Author Junauda Petrus-Nasah reflects on fall and the wild magic of leaves," 16 Sep. 2020 The blog post is light on details—the where, when, and how of Krug’s masquerade. — Lauren Michele Jackson, The New Yorker, "The Layered Deceptions of Jessica Krug, the Black-Studies Professor Who Hid That She Is White," 12 Sep. 2020 For this masquerade, he had been mercilessly lampooned in Northern caricature as a coward in drag—portrayed in hoopskirts and a ludicrous bonnet. — Harold Holzer, Smithsonian Magazine, "How Northern Publishers Cashed In on Fundraising for Confederate Monuments," 7 July 2020 Recent Examples on the Web: Verb The team bolstered their HARPS work with concurrent observations from two other telescopes to monitor for flares and starspots that could masquerade as planets. — Lee Billings, Scientific American, "The Earth Next Door," 24 Aug. 2016 News organizations—and other entities that masquerade as them—are turning to increasingly desperate measures for survival. — Anna Wiener, The New Yorker, "Is Substack the Media Future We Want?," 28 Dec. 2020 But some see these relationships between fans and idols as parasocial ones — largely one-sided interactions with mass-media figures that masquerade as friendship — and worry about the long-term mental health effects of such devotion. — New York Times, "How Pop Music Fandom Became Sports, Politics, Religion and All-Out War," 25 Dec. 2020 Tricorache says that sometimes dealers masquerade as conservation organizations or animal rescue operations in attempts to navigate around laws and permitting requirements. — Animals, "The black-market trade in wildlife has moved online, and the deluge is 'dizzying'," 18 Dec. 2020 To win targets’ confidence, the group goes to great lengths to create websites and online personas that masquerade as legitimate people and organizations. — Dan Goodin, Ars Technica, "Facebook says hackers backed by Vietnam’s government are linked to IT firm," 11 Dec. 2020 Could enforced confinement in another country masquerade as a vacation? — Lilly Graves, Travel + Leisure, "What It’s Really Like to Quarantine Abroad for 2 Weeks, According a Traveler Who Did It," 26 Sep. 2020 To keep with the old-but-new aesthetic, seek out a variety of portraits and botanical prints that masquerade as if they were salvaged from an old library or estate sale. — Jessica Dailey, Good Housekeeping, "How to Seriously Cozy Up a Guest Bedroom," 14 Sep. 2020 Now, widowed and thrown into Bedlam by scheming family members, Patience has to masquerade as a nanny for her newborn son while being overseen by her son’s new guardian, Busick Strathmore, Duke of Repington. — Maureen Lee Lenker, EW.com, "Hot Stuff: June romances embrace the inherent sexiness of faking it," 30 June 2020

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'masquerade.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.