Word.ws English Dictionary

pageant

Syllables: pa·geant/ˈpæd͡ʒənt/

pageant noun: an elaborate public display, especially a parade in historical or traditional costume. Also the ellipsis of beauty pageant.

Noun

pageant (plural pageants)

  1. An elaborate public display, especially a parade in historical or traditional costume.
    • For a few moments the events of the day floated in disastrous pageant through my brain, till sleep bathed it in forgetfulness […]1826, [Mary Shelley], chapter IV, in The Last Man. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC
    • The artists who painted these murals brought the pageant of America vividly to life. Everyone knew that the construction of this pageant, and the celebration of America that it implied, was the work of the New Deal.2022, Gary Gerstle, chapter 1, in The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order […] , New York: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, Part I. The New Deal Order, 1930–1980
    Synonyms:
    spectacle
  2. A spectacular ceremony.
  3. (obsolete) A wheeled platform for the exhibition of plays, etc.

Verb

pageant (third-person singular simple present pageants, present participle pageanting, simple past and past participle pageanted)

  1. To exhibit in show; to represent; to mimic.
    • He pageants us.c. 1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...

Also used as

pageant is also the ellipsis of beauty pageant.

pageant meaning in Arabic

pageant in Arabic

public display
اِسْتِعْرَاض istiʕrāḍ

Examples of pageant in a sentence

  • By Thursday, Momma's pageant fever was worse than ever, though the tri-county pageant wasn't until early June.
  • Some well-to-do pageanteers evidently traveled around the country to appear in one pageant after another.
  • "Madeline, can't you do something about the proliferation of pageants in these parts?

All 23 example sentences with pageant

Synonyms of pageant

Forms of pageant

Noun
pluralpageants
alternative form (obsolete)pageaunt
Verb
third-person singular presentpageants
present participlepageanting
past participlepageanted
pastpageanted

Plural of pageant: pageants

Origin of pageant

Late 14th c. as Middle English pagent, from Medieval Latin pagina (“play in a cycle of mystery plays”), perhaps from Latin pāgina (“page of a book”).

Words formed from pageant

Phrases with pageant

Questions about pageant

What does pageant mean?
Pageant means an elaborate public display, especially a parade in historical or traditional costume.
What is pageant in Arabic?
Pageant in Arabic is اِسْتِعْرَاض (istiʕrāḍ). See Pageant meaning in Arabic.
What part of speech is pageant?
Pageant can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce pageant?
Pageant is pronounced /ˈpæd͡ʒənt/.
What is the plural of pageant?
The plural of pageant is pageants.

Words near pageant in the dictionary

  1. page-turner
  2. page-turners
  3. page-turny
  4. pageability
  5. pageable
  6. pageant
  7. pageant fever
  8. pageant-goer
  9. pageant-goers
  10. pageanted
  11. pageanteer

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pageant (page history and authors). 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-pageant.wav.

Cite this entry: “pageant.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pageant. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.