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.
But ProPublica found that those claims were a charade: Lifesaving programs remained on the books, but the flow of money didn’t restart for months, if at all.
From Salon • Dec. 16, 2025
Steve Smith has been able to spend time revising Monty Panesar's answers on Mastermind, and Pat Cummins felt comfortable enough to go through a charade over whether or not he would play at the Gabba.
From BBC • Dec. 7, 2025
Why force myself to go through with this charade again?
From MarketWatch • Nov. 27, 2025
“Jain’s and Cohen’s months-long charade was deliberate, coordinated, and unlawful,” Palantir said in the lawsuit.
From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 30, 2025
And what if my charade as Matilda Maddox had already been figured out?
From "The Detective's Assistant" by Kate Hannigan
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.
