Pageant
nounAn elaborate public show, procession, or competition, often involving costumes and display.
How to spell pageant
7 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce pageant
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does pageant mean?
- nounAn elaborate public show, procession, or competition, often involving costumes and display.
Pageant in a sentence
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The town staged a historical pageant to mark its anniversary.
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She won the regional beauty pageant before turning professional.
Where does pageant come from?
Language of origin: Latin
The word arrived in Middle English in the late 1300s as 'pagyn' or 'pagent', borrowed from the Anglo-Latin and Medieval Latin word 'pagina'. In classical Latin pagina simply meant a 'page' or 'leaf' of writing, and was linked to the verb 'pangere', meaning 'to fasten' or 'fix in place'. In medieval usage the sense shifted to describe a scene of a mystery play, and then the movable wooden stage or scaffold on which such a scene was performed and wheeled through the streets. From that travelling spectacle the meaning broadened to any showy public procession or elaborate display, and later to organised competitions of beauty and costume. The tricky modern spelling preserves the older 'pagent' shape with an extra silent 'a', so the soft 'g' and the muffled 'ea' are exactly where writers tend to slip and drop a letter.
How the word is built
- pageant- (from Medieval Latin pagina, a scene on a stage)
- spelling settled with the silent middle vowels of the -eant ending
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