kayfabe
Americannoun
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Wrestling. the portrayal of staged events, narratives, and characters as real.
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an elaborate, performative fiction.
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.
They’ve become experts in kayfabe, the dramatic art of masking fake conflict as real.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 24, 2026
Or maybe, he says, the encore is like an act of kayfabe, referring to the portrayal of staged events in pro wrestling.
From Washington Post • Nov. 15, 2022
Donaghy appeared to help Holliday win the match creating kayfabe controversy in MLW.
From Fox News • Jan. 29, 2021
Sliding the veil of kayfabe aside, she shares advice she gave after Jax bloodied Lynch’s face in the ring, going viral.
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 16, 2019
In that much-circulated clip, Okerlund appears to break kayfabe, another pro wrestling term of art for slipping out of character, but his spontaneous grief was really, or perhaps also, a consummate calculation.
From Slate • Jan. 4, 2019
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.
