masquerade

Etymology

in Venice, Italy, in 2015]] The noun is borrowed from Middle French mascarade, masquarade, masquerade (modern French mascarade (“masquerade, masque; farce”)), and its etymon Italian mascherata (“masquerade”), from maschera (“mask”) + -ata. Maschera is derived from Medieval Latin masca (“mask”): see further there. The English word is cognate with Late Latin masquarata, Portuguese mascarada, Spanish mascarada. The verb is derived from the noun.

noun

1. An assembly or party of people wearing (usually elaborate or fanciful) masks and costumes, and amusing themselves with dancing, conversation, or other diversions.
   I was invited to the masquerade party 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. (figurative) 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. 1842 July, [Thomas de Quincey], “Cicero”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume LII, number CCCXXI, Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood & Sons,[…], →OCLC, page 2, column 1
4. (figurative) An assembly of varied, often fanciful, things.
5. (fandom slang) A cosplay event at which costumed attendees perform skits.
6. (obsolete) A dramatic performance by actors in masks; a mask or masque.
7. (obsolete, rare) A Spanish entertainment or military exercise in which squadrons of horses charge at each other, the riders fighting with bucklers and canes.

verb

1. (intransitive) 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?
2. (intransitive, figurative) To pass 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. 25 July 2018, A. A. Dowd, “Fallout may be the Most Breathlessly Intense Mission: Impossible Adventure Yet”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 2018-07-31
3. (transitive, rare) To conceal (someone) with, or as if with, a mask; to disguise.