charade
Americannoun
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(used with a singular verb) charades, a game in which the players are typically divided into two teams, members of which take turns at acting out in pantomime a word, phrase, title, etc., which the members of their own team must guess.
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a word or phrase acted out in this game.
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a blatant pretense or deception, especially something so full of pretense as to be a travesty.
noun
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an episode or act in the game of charades
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an absurd act; travesty
Etymology
Origin of charade
1770–80; < French < Provençal charrad ( o ) entertainment, equivalent to charr ( á ) to chat, chatter (from imitative root) + -ado -ade 1
Explanation
A charade is something done just for show. Your devotion to vegetarianism would be a charade if you actually ate cheeseburgers when no one was looking. When you want things to appear different than they really are, you might be tempted to put on a charade, like a charade of happiness when you are really feeling down. Charade is also the name for a silently-acted clue in the game called Charades — which originally wasn't silent. It used indirect descriptions of the words.
Vocabulary lists containing charade
"The Stolen Party"
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Glitch
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The Tower of Nero
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The same would apply to Charade - otherwise known as Clermont-Ferrand - a stunning road course in the Massif Central that held four French Grands Prix between 1965 and 1972.
From BBC • Apr. 30, 2024
Anand Giridharadas, the publisher of The.Ink newsletter, is the author, most recently, of “Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World.”
From New York Times • Apr. 26, 2022
Director Garry Marshall makes vintage entertainment an obsession for Vivian, who guffaws infectiously at old I Love Lucy episodes and falls asleep watching Hepburn and Cary Grant in Charade.
From The Guardian • Mar. 23, 2020
These measures don’t acknowledge the scope of what happened, Giridharadas, author of “Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World” told me by phone.
From Washington Post • Sep. 6, 2019
Answer to Charade in No. 17, on page 216—Fishball.
From Harper's Young People, March 16, 1880 An Illustrated Weekly by Various
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
