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
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
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
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
Stanley Donen, the legendary director behind Singin’ in the Rain, Funny Face, Charade, and Bedazzled, died Saturday at the age of 94.
From Slate • Feb. 24, 2019
His recent book, Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World, torches the privileged circles he has moved in much of his adult life, and is rooted in insider knowledge.
From The Guardian • Dec. 18, 2018
Charade, shar-�d′, n. a species of riddle, the subject of which is a word proposed for solution from an enigmatical description of its component syllables and of the whole—the charade is often acted.
From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 1 of 4: A-D) 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.
