Parade

How to spell parade

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce parade

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does parade mean?

1. nounA public procession of people, vehicles, or troops, usually to mark an occasion.
2. verbTo walk or march in a showy way, or to display something conspicuously.

Parade in a sentence

• noun

  The whole town lined the streets to watch the carnival parade.

• verb

  The winners began to parade their trophies around the field.

• noun

  A military parade marched past the war memorial at dawn.

• verb

  Protesters parade past the town hall every Saturday morning.

Where does parade come from?

Language of origin: French

This word reached English in the mid 1600s from the French parade, which French had borrowed from the Italian parata and the Spanish parada, all tracing back to the Latin verb parare, meaning 'to prepare' or 'to make ready'. The earliest sense was military: a parade was a place where troops were made ready and shown off, and then the orderly display of those troops itself. From that drilling ground the meaning broadened to any ceremonial procession and, by extension, to the act of showing something off conspicuously. The same Latin parare lies behind a surprising family of English words, including 'prepare', 'repair', and even 'apparatus', all built on the idea of getting things ready. Remembering that origin helps with the spelling: it is par- plus the soft French -ade ending, never doubled and never spelt with a hard sound.

How the word is built

• par- (from Latin parare: to prepare, make ready)
• -ade (noun suffix via French and Italian denoting an action or display)