masqueradenoun/ˌmæskəˈɹeɪd/

• 1

  An assembly or party of people wearing (usually elaborate or fanciful) masks and costumes, and amusing themselves with dancing, conversation, or other diversions.

  • Near-synonym: costume party
  • I was invited to the masquerade at their home.
• 2

  The act of wearing a mask or dressing up in a costume for, or as if for, a masquerade ball.

• 3

  An act of living under false pretenses; a concealment of something by a false or unreal show; a disguise, a pretence; also, a pretentious display.

  • Verres in the youth of Cicero, Catiline and Clodius in his middle age, Mark Antony in his old age, have all been left to operate on the modern reader's feelings precisely through that masquerade of misrepresentation which invariably accompanied the political eloquence of Rome.
• 4

  An assembly of varied, often fanciful, things.

• 5

  slanglifestyleA cosplay event at which costumed attendees perform skits.

• 6

  obsoleteA dramatic performance by actors in masks; a mask or masque.

• 7

  obsoleterareA Spanish entertainment or military exercise in which squadrons of horses charge at each other, the riders fighting with bucklers and canes.

masqueradeverb/ˌmæskəˈɹeɪd/

• 1

  To take part in a masquerade; to assemble in masks and costumes; (loosely) to wear a disguise.

  • I’m going to masquerade as an old-fashioned pilot. What are you going to dress up as?
  • There was a Freak took an Aſs in the Head, to Scoure abroad on the Ramble; and away he goes into the Woods, Maſquerading up and down in a Lyon's Skin.
• 2

  To pass oneself off as a different person or a person with qualities that one does not possess; also, to make a pretentious show of being what one is not.

  • He masqueraded as my friend until the truth finally came out.
  • Ethan Hunt, the human missile of American intelligence that Tom Cruise has been popping back in to play for more than 20 years now, is masquerading as a mysterious terrorist, the perfectly named John Lark, to buy back some plutonium he’s lost to a cabal of doomsday extremists.
• 3

  To appear as something else.

  • A Foundation outpost masquerading as an abandoned home has been established within the vicinity of SCP-2003.
• 4

  rareTo conceal (someone) with, or as if with, a mask; to disguise.