Contextualizebeta

charade

noun
/ʃəˈɹɑːd/UK/ʃəˈɹeɪd/US

Etymology

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.

  1. derived from charrada
  2. borrowed from charade

Definitions

  1. A genre of riddles where the clues to the answer are descriptions or puns on its…

    A genre of riddles where the clues to the answer are descriptions or puns on its syllables, with a final clue to the whole.

  2. A single round of the game charades, an acted form of the earlier riddles.

  3. A play resembling the game charades, particularly due to poor acting.

  4. ›+ 3 more definitions

    1. 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?

    2. A form of wordplay where several words are placed together to form a new word or part…

      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).
      • Takes is a bit of a charade indicator here, telling you that one word takes on or adds on to another.
      • Try solving the following clues. They are all charades, some of which use link words of the types described above.

    3. To act out a charade (of)

      To act out a charade (of); to gesture; to pretend.

      • She flaps her hands and arms, eyes glaring, head shaking – charading Non, non, NON!
      • Private, wholesome family time could no longer charade as being either private or wholly wholesome.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for charade. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA