noun
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spectacular display or ceremony
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archaic pageants collectively
Etymology
Origin of pageantry
Explanation
Pageantry is the grandeur that turns an event into an elaborate spectacle. The long ritual of a new queen's coronation is a good example of pageantry. In contrast to the simplicity of a small wedding ceremony in a friend's back yard, a grand, expensive wedding might include such pageantry as a parade of bridesmaids in rainbow-colored gowns, followed by a mariachi band and the bride arriving on the back of an elephant. Pageantry comes from pageant, which today is a "showy spectacle or parade," but in Middle English meant "stage or scene of a play."
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.
Arguably more interest stemmed from the pageantry of Sunday's game than from the actual cricket.
From BBC • Feb. 15, 2026
Hence, Fiennes’ outrageous pageantry sharpens “The Bone Temple” into a tragedy as opposed to just another bloodbath.
From Salon • Jan. 23, 2026
Yet it was precisely this world—hierarchical, steeped in pageantry, encouraging of free inquiry and progress—that produced the Industrial Revolution and the republican structure of government that took root in the U.S.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 2, 2026
Such state visits are about projecting soft power and building relationships, and the three-day visit will see a mix of pageantry, politics and culture.
From BBC • Dec. 3, 2025
I watched the pageantry from my vantage there.
From "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss
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.
