carnival

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   Any of a number of festivals held just before the beginning of Lent.

   • Carnival of Brazil
   • Venice Carnival
2. 2

   A festive occasion marked by parades and sometimes special foods and other entertainment.

3. 3

   A traveling amusement park, called a funfair in British English.

   • We all got to ride the merry-go-round when they brought their carnival to town.
   • When the carnival came to town, every one wanted some cotton candy.
4. ›+ 6 more definitionsshow fewer

   1. 4

      A context in which transgression or inversion of the social order is given temporary…

      A context in which transgression or inversion of the social order is given temporary license. Derived from the work of Mikhail Bakhtin.

      • The social environment contains the ambiguous traces of carnival: it resists the ideology of capitalism and, at the same time, reproduces the capitalist social order.
   2. 5

      A gaudily chaotic situation.

      • a carnival of idiocy
   3. 6

      To participate in a carnival.

   4. 7

      To move about playfully or wildly.

      • The spot is a marvel of beauty and taste; and here, where dust and sun carnivaled for so many years, thousands of every class congregate to listen each evening to music discoursed for the amusement of oi polloi.
      • Sitting in the Chevy, Saturday night on Main Street carnivaling around her, she told herself that she understood, that Ross had made a mistake, had pre-arranged this celebration for tonight and thought that his date with her was tomorrow.
      • A sudden bright white flash exploded before me. A kaleidoscope of silver lines drawn in rapid succession carnivalled in a blizzard of raging energy.
   5. 8

      The season just before the beginning of the Western Christian season of Lent.

   6. 9

      Alternative form of carnival

      Alternative form of carnival; especially in the sense "any of a number of festivals held just before the beginning of Lent."

      • To the statement above we may, of course, add that a far greater number have never had the “luck” of seeing a Continental Fair;— the Carnivals of Italy, of France,—a Russian Fair,—or the Carnivals and Jahrmarkts of Germany.

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