Word.ws English Dictionary

pageant fever

pageant fever noun: a rise in the popular enthusiasm for pageants.

Noun

pageant fever (uncountable)

  1. A rise in the popular enthusiasm for pageants.
    • All ranks appear to have imbibed the pageant-fever from the fair aristocrat, who arranges her raven locks after the Jewess fashion, so becomingly borne by Mrs. Flynn, down to the ragged urchin who patrols the street with a stick and a kite ...1835, “Bowery Theatre”, in The New-York Mirror, volume 13, page 310
    • One can fancy, if this “Pageant fever” continues, that Bury St. Edmunds will be boasting that she has gathered her tens of thousands where Warwick gathered her thousands, and so on.1906 August, Fanny Johnson, “Folk-plays and Folk-education”, in The School World, volume VIII, number 92, London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., page 289
  2. An enthusiastic desire to participate in pageants.
    • Most contestants don't need much encouragement; once they begin to compete they catch pageant fever.1984, Newsweek, volume 104, numbers 10–18, page 60
    • JonBenét seemed to have pageant fever, too. She was a seasoned pro by the time she was six.2010, T. R. Thomas, Cold Cases, Saddleback Educational Publishing, page 21

Examples of pageant fever in a sentence

  • Last year, it may be remembered, my allusions, such as they were, to the Pageant fever that obsessed the country (Pageantitis) were couched in somewhat supercilious vain.1907 May 8, “The Oxford Pageant”, in The Bystander, volume XIV, number 179, London, page 280:
  • The “pageant fever” that strikes this resort each September ...1948 September 7, “Miss America Due to Be Chosen”, in The New York Times, page 28:
  • Whether we admit it or not, once a year (and only once), the country comes down with pageant fever.1992, Armando Riverol, Live from Atlantic City: The History of the Miss America Pageant Before, After and in Spite of Television, Popular...
  • By Thursday, Momma's pageant fever was worse than ever, though the tri-county pageant wasn't until early June.2012, Kirsten Hubbard, Like Mandarin, Ember, page 151:

Questions about pageant fever

What does pageant fever mean?
Pageant fever means a rise in the popular enthusiasm for pageants.
How do you use pageant fever in a sentence?
Last year, it may be remembered, my allusions, such as they were, to the Pageant fever that obsessed the country (Pageantitis) were couched in somewhat supercilious vain.
What part of speech is pageant fever?
Pageant fever is a noun.

Words near pageant fever in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pageant fever (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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