pageant

plural pageants · alternative obsolete pageaunt

1. An elaborate public display, especially a parade in historical or traditional costume.

   For a few moments the events of the day floated in disastrous pageant through my brain, till sleep bathed it in forgetfulness […]

   1826, [Mary Shelley], chapter IV, in The Last Man. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC

   1 more example

   The artists who painted these murals brought the pageant of America vividly to life. Everyone knew that the construction of this pageant, and the celebration of America that it implied, was the work of the New Deal.

   2022, Gary Gerstle, chapter 1, in The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order […] , New York: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, Part I. The New Deal Order, 1930–1980

   Synonyms: spectacle

2. A spectacular ceremony.
3. abbreviationellipsisEllipsis of beauty pageant.

   Synonyms: beauty contest, beauty pageant

4. obsoleteA wheeled platform for the exhibition of plays, etc.

present singular third person pageants · participle present pageanting · participle past pageanted · past pageanted · alternative obsolete pageaunt

1. To exhibit in show; to represent; to mimic.

   He pageants us.

   c. 1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii]