noun
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spectacular display or ceremony
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archaic pageants collectively
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
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.
See Examples For:
Some of these lines get at this crucial point that I think your music makes, which is that pageantry and sincerity can coexist.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 9, 2026
US President Donald Trump took Chinese leader Xi Jinping to see the founding documents of American democracy on Friday, capping a state visit full of pomp and pageantry but with no major breakthroughs.
From Barron's ● Sep. 25, 2026
“The elaborate pageantry matters precisely because there is still relatively little substantive progress to showcase,” Singleton said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 25, 2026
The pageantry is a gamble rather than a guarantee, most of all for Xi, who is staking his standing at home on a smooth performance by the least predictable counterpart in the room.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 23, 2026
In the days after, I watched the ridiculous pageantry of flags, the machismo of firemen, the overwrought slogans.
From "Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates
An arrival ceremony on the South Lawn ranks among the most regal of pageantries that Washington has to offer, reserved usually for the most important of visitors and even then for special occasions.
From New York Times ● Sep. 23, 2015
He has conceived scintillating decors for Ziegfeld pageantries.
From Time Magazine Archive
Sir Henry Lee, however, appears to have devoted his life to these chivalrous pageantries rather from a quixotical imagination than with any serious views of ambition or interest.
From Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth by Lucy Aikin
Instead of being in an Oriental amphitheatre, he was standing in a rural lane; instead of tumult he found tranquillity; instead of regal pageantries an almost primitive simplicity.
From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 by Various
The pomps of the religion, the pageantries of the court, and the munificence of the nobility, were never before characterised by so much grandeur and profusion.
From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 by Various
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