masquerade

plural masquerades · alternative mascarade · alternative maskerade

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

4. alsoattributivefigurativelyAn assembly of varied, often fanciful, things.
5. alsoattributiveslanglifestyleA cosplay event at which costumed attendees perform skits.
6. alsoattributiveobsoleteA dramatic performance by actors in masks; a mask or masque.
7. alsoattributiveobsoleterareA Spanish entertainment or military exercise in which squadrons of horses charge at each other, the riders fighting with bucklers and canes.

present singular third person masquerades · participle present masquerading · participle past masqueraded · past masqueraded

1. alsoattributiveintransitiveTo take part in a masquerade; to assemble in masks and costumes; (loosely) to wear a disguise.

   I’m going to masquerade as an old-fashioned pilot. What are you going to dress up as?

   1 more example

   There was a Freak took an Aſs in the Head, to Scoure abroad on the Ramble; and away he goes into the Woods, Maſquerading up and down in a Lyon's Skin.

   1692, Roger L’Estrange, “[The Fables of Anianus, &c.] Fab[le] CCXXIV. An Ass in a Lyon’s Skin.”, in Fables, of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists: […], London: […] R[ichard] Sare, […], →OCLC, page 196

2. alsoattributivefigurativelyintransitiveTo 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.

   He masqueraded as my friend until the truth finally came out.

   1 more example

   Ethan Hunt, the human missile of American intelligence that Tom Cruise has been popping back in to play for more than 20 years now, is masquerading as a mysterious terrorist, the perfectly named John Lark, to buy back some plutonium he’s lost to a cabal of doomsday extremists.

   2018 July 25, A. A. Dowd, “Fallout may be the Most Breathlessly Intense Mission: Impossible Adventure Yet”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 31 Jul 2018

3. alsoattributivebroadlyfigurativelyintransitiveTo appear as something else.

   A Foundation outpost masquerading as an abandoned home has been established within the vicinity of SCP-2003.

   2025 August 5, PlaguePJP, J Dune, “SCP-2003”, in SCP Wiki, archived from the original on 29 Jul 2026

4. alsoattributiveraretransitiveTo conceal (someone) with, or as if with, a mask; to disguise.