Charade

Quick meaning: Charade is a noun meaning (uncommon) A single round of the game charades, an acted form of the earlier riddles.

Meaning

(uncommon) A single round of the game charades, an acted form of the earlier riddles.

More Meanings

1. A deception or pretense, originally an absurdly obvious one but now in general use.
2. (crosswording) A form of wordplay where several words are placed together to form a new word or part thereof.
3. To act out a charade (of); to gesture; to pretend.
4. (literature, archaic) A genre of riddles where the clues to the answer are descriptions or puns on its syllables, with a final clue to the whole.
5. (obsolete) A play resembling the game charades, particularly due to poor acting.

Example Sentences

This whole charade is absurd.

Takes is a bit of a charade indicator here, telling you that one word takes on or adds on to another.

Try solving the following clues. They are all charades, some of which use link words of the types described above.

Sometimes the tricks above may be used in combination: a homophone may come in two pieces like a charade (RAINBOW sounding like REIGN + BEAU) or a charade may be reversed (TACKLE having ELK + CAT backwards).

Word Forms

• charades
• charading
• charaded

Synonyms for charade

Depending on context, synonyms include farce, sham, pasquinade, travesty, parody, spoof.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include takeoff, burlesque, spoof, parody, sendup, travesty.

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