charade
/ʃəˈɹɑːd//ʃəˈɹeɪd/
charade noun: a genre of riddles where the clues to the answer are descriptions or puns on its syllables, with a final clue to the whole.
Noun
charade (plural charades)
- A genre of riddles where the clues to the answer are descriptions or puns on its syllables, with a final clue to the whole.
- CHARADE, a trifling species of composition, or quasi-literary form of amusement, which may perhaps be best defined as a punning enigma propounded in a series of descriptions. A word is taken of two or more syllables, each forming a distinct word; each of these is described in verse or prose, as...1878, "Charade" in the Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th ed., Vol. V, p. 398
- A single round of the game charades, an acted form of the earlier riddles.
- ...The most popular form of this amusement is the acted charade, in which the meaning of the different syllables is acted out on the stage, the audience being left to guess each syllable and thus, combining the meaning of all the syllables, the whole word. A brilliant example of the acted charade...1911, "Charade" in the Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed., Vol. V, p. 856
- Synonyms:
- acted charade, dumb charade
- A play resembling the game charades, particularly due to poor acting.
- A deception or pretense, originally an absurdly obvious one but now in general use.
- This whole charade is absurd.
- The woman lying dead in the morgue was the woman at the party. Well, Victor, maybe I'm missing something here. You call it fake, a charade… Do you mind telling me what kind of fuckin' charade ends up with somebody turning up dead?1999, Stanley Kubrick, Eyes Wide Shut (motion picture), spoken by Dr. Bill Harford (Tom Cruise)
- A form of wordplay where several words are placed together to form a new word or part thereof.
- Sometimes the tricks above may be used in combination: a homophone may come in two pieces like a charade (RAINBOW sounding like REIGN + BEAU) or a charade may be reversed (TACKLE having ELK + CAT backwards).2009 May 5, Emily Cox, Henry Rathvon, The Atlantic Cryptic Crosswords, Sterling Publishing Company, Inc., →ISBN, page 5
- Takes is a bit of a charade indicator here, telling you that one word takes on or adds on to another.2012 October 15, Denise Sutherland, Solving Cryptic Crosswords For Dummies, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 37
Verb
charade (third-person singular simple present charades, present participle charading, simple past and past participle charaded)
- To act out a charade (of); to gesture; to pretend.
- I'm not trying to say: let's try to get away from power rituals because power manifestation is a very important part of sex. It is when it takes the form of charading gay punishment, punishing one of our own in order to allow him a gay contact.1977 April 30, David Holland, John Rechy, “The Politics of 'The Sexual Outlaw'”, in Gay Community News, page 10
- She flaps her hands and arms, eyes glaring, head shaking – charading Non, non, NON!2015, Graeme Fife, Tour de France: The History, The Legend, The Riders
charade meaning in Tamil, Bengali and Malayalam
charade in Tamil
- சைகை மொழிச் சொல் விளையாட்டு
charade in Bengali
- ভান, ইঙ্গিতপূর্ণ খেলা, উপহাসমূলক ভান
charade in Malayalam
- farce, pantomime, travesty
- അഭിനയനാട്യം, പരിഹാസ്യമായ അഭിനയം, പ്രഹസനം, മൂകനാടകം, ഹാസ്യാനുകരണം, പരിഹാസം
Examples of charade in a sentence
- CHARADE, a trifling species of composition, or quasi-literary form of amusement, which may perhaps be best defined as a punning enigma propounded in a series of descriptions.1878, "Charade" in the Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th ed., Vol. V, p. 398
- A brilliant example of the acted charade is described in Thackeray’s Vanity Fair.1911, "Charade" in the Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed., Vol. V, p. 856
- “The way you’ve been talking about this — that dumb fucking charade with the Epstein files, the ‘They’re on my desk’ nonsense, all the promises to the folks out there.”2026 June 10, Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan, “Inside Trump’s White House, the Epstein Files Caused a Freakout”, in The New York Times...
- They are all charades, some of which use link words of the types described above.2020 August 20, Telegraph Media Group Ltd, The Telegraph: How To Solve a Cryptic Crossword: Mastering cryptic crosswords made easy...
Synonyms of charade
Forms of charade
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | charades |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | charades |
| present participle | charading |
| past participle | charaded |
| past | charaded |
Origin of charade
From French charade, charrade (“prattle, idle conversation; a kind of riddle”), probably from Occitan charrada (“conversation; chatter”), from charrar (“to chat; to chatter”) + -ada. As a round of the game, originally a clipping of acting charade but now usually understood and formed as a back-formation from charades.
Words formed from charade
Phrases with charade
Words that rhyme with charade
Questions about charade
- What does charade mean?
- Charade means a genre of riddles where the clues to the answer are descriptions or puns on its syllables, with a final clue to the whole.
- What is charade in Tamil?
- Charade in Tamil is சைகை மொழிச் சொல் விளையாட்டு. See Charade meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use charade in a sentence?
- CHARADE, a trifling species of composition, or quasi-literary form of amusement, which may perhaps be best defined as a punning enigma propounded in a series of descriptions.
- What part of speech is charade?
- Charade can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce charade?
- Charade is pronounced /ʃəˈɹɑːd/ (UK).
- What is the plural of charade?
- The plural of charade is charades.
Words near charade in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: charade (page history and authors); charade (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); charade (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); charade (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-charade.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-John Adams VI-Charade.wav.
Cite this entry: “charade.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/charade. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.