Masquerade

[Slava]

Yesterday's Good Word (8/25):

• masquerade •

Pronunciation: mæs-kê-rayd • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: 1. A masked ball, a costume party with masks. 2. A costume for such a costume party. 3. A charade, disguise, pretense, false outward show, as 'a masquerade of kindness'.

Notes: Here is a word whose spelling is a masquerade. We have to remember that it is Old French with the French spelling of [k] (Modern French mascarade, but still masque) and French accent on the last syllable. It comes with an English personal noun, masquerader, and it may be used as a verb. That means the action noun and adjective, like English, is the present participle, masquerading.

In Play: Masquerades are not limited to balls: "Maggie's 'youth' is just a masquerade, accomplished by facelifts, wigs, and dozens of skin creams." Here is a sentence using today's word as a noun and a verb: "Today the US Congress is little more than a masquerade ball of politicians, dancing clumsily around real issues and supported by opaquely funded lobbying firms masquerading as 'thinktanks'."

Word History: Today's Good Word consists of French masque "mask" + -ade, a noun suffix denoting an activity or the results of an action, like blockade, serenade, and cannonade. French masque comes from Medieval Latin masca "mask, specter, nightmare", which did not exist in Classical Latin. Some suppose it comes from Arabic maskharah "buffoon, mockery", from sakhira "be mocked, ridiculed". We have no hard evidence of this origin. It seems related to mascara, which was borrowed from Old French mascurer "to blacken (the face)" or Spanish máscara "mask, cover; pretext, disguise". But no one knows where these came from, only that they came from the same source as masque. -Ade comes from French, which inherited it from Latin -ata, the feminine form of -atus, the Latin past participle ending, used as a noun. Latin apparently created its suffix from PIE -to-, an adjective suffix, that is also the source of Sanskrit -tah, Greek -tos, and English -ed.