masquerade

What it means

1. alsoattributiveAn assembly or party of people wearing (usually elaborate or fanciful) masks and costumes, and amusing themselves with dancing, conversation, or other diversions.

   Near-synonym: costume party

   2 more examples

   I was invited to the masquerade at their home.

   What guards the purity of melting Maids, / In courtly Balls and midnight Maſquerades, / Safe from the treach'rous friend, and daring ſpark, / The glance by day, the whiſper in the dark; / [...] / 'Tis but their Sylph, the wiſe Celeſtials know, / Tho' Honour is the word with Men below.

   1714, Alexander Pope, “The Rape of the Lock”, in The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope, volume I, London: […] W[illiam] Bowyer, for Bernard Lintot, […], published 1717, →OCLC, canto I, page 125

   Synonyms: masque, costume party

2. alsoattributiveThe act of wearing a mask or dressing up in a costume for, or as if for, a masquerade ball.
3. alsoattributivefigurativelyAn act of living under false pretenses; a concealment of something by a false or unreal show; a disguise, a pretence; also, a pretentious display.

   Verres in the youth of Cicero, Catiline and Clodius in his middle age, Mark Antony in his old age, have all been left to operate on the modern reader's feelings precisely through that masquerade of misrepresentation which invariably accompanied the political eloquence of Rome.

   1842 July, [Thomas de Quincey], “Cicero”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume LII, number CCCXXI, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood & Sons, […], →OCLC, page 2, column 1

In a sentence

Near-synonym: costume party

Where it comes from

1. Medieval Latinmasca“mask”
2. Italianmascherata“masquerade”
3. Middle Frenchmascarade
4. Englishmasquerade

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.