noun
-
spectacular display or ceremony
-
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.
The jokes landed, the warm words resonated, the pageantry looked good on the evening news.
From BBC • Apr. 29, 2026
The season will conclude on 12 September with the traditional pageantry of the Last Night.
From BBC • Apr. 20, 2026
At one point, I thought it would be cool to do like a pageantry baton spinning dance.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 25, 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
“No—no—please—as you were. With only two men for each officer, and all the men sick, I think we can do without the usual pageantry between officers and men.”
From "Slaughterhouse-Five" by Kurt Vonnegut
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.
