• pageant •
Pronunciation: pæ-jênt • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: A spectacular show, an elaborate theatrical ceremony or festivity.
Notes: Here is a word with an odd origin. It comes with a quality noun, pageantry, that means "the characteristics of a pageant" or "many pageants". The adjective is pageantic "like a pageant" and a participant in a pageant may be called a pageanteer.
In Play: Female beauty contests are most often called "pageants": "Phil Anders only dreams of beauty pageants." But any big, colorful show is a pageant: "The promenades every evening in Belgrade were pageants of well-dressed people, friends, and acquaintances."
Word History: The origin of today's Good Word was taken from Medieval Latin pagenta "pageant, stage set for a pageant", a word seemingly based on Classical Latin pagina "page, sheet, tablet". How the root, pa(n)g-, could end up in two words so semantically different remains a mystery, leaving the door open for speculation. Eventually, pagina came to mean "tablet", which was a substantial flat surface. Maybe that became "stage" hence "pageant". Pagina was made from PIE pa(n)g- "to fasten", which turns up in Sanskrit pasa- "cord, rope", Latin pagere or pangere "to fasten", and Greek pegnynai "to fix, make firm". In English, it never made it past Old English fegan "to join" and fon "to catch, seize". (Now let's give Frank Myers a standing e-ovation for suggesting today's evocative Good Word in 2021 and "Slava" for reminding us of it in the Agora.)
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