pageants

plural of pageant
1
as in parades
a staged presentation often with music that consists of a procession of narrated or enacted scenes we always put on a Christmas pageant every year

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2
as in exhibits
an elaborate, visually exciting show or event an annual summertime pageant depicting the town's founding and colorful early history

Synonyms & Similar Words

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of pageants From competitive cheerleading and dance to beauty pageants, my mother put me in it all. Amanda Le, InStyle, 4 June 2026 The festival includes dancing, singing, and beauty pageants. Charles Preston, Encyclopedia Britannica, 28 May 2026 Her daughters Charli, 6, and Lacie Lou, 4, have been competing in pageants since a very young age, with Charli making her stage debut at just 8 months old. Zoey Lyttle, PEOPLE, 3 July 2026 Immersive museums, covered wagon campgrounds, pageants, and hands-on historical sites breathe life into Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books and make her characters come alive. Alicia Underlee Nelson, Midwest Living, 22 June 2026 Now in its 79th year, the festival features crab races—including the Governor’s Cup—cooking contests, live music, parades, pageants, running events, and boat docking competitions. Travel + Leisure Editors, Travel + Leisure, 19 May 2026 As a teenager, Bajaria helped her immigrant family’s business, washing cars before winning a string of beauty pageants, including Miss India Worldwide in 1991. Preston Fore, Fortune, 29 May 2026 For adult pageants, the organization will send Lianet Aguilera to Miss Supranational and Juan Daniel Naranjo to Mister Supranational, both contests held in Poland. Sarah Moreno may 31, Miami Herald, 31 May 2026 The world’s first boardwalk opened here in 1870, and by the early 20th century, Atlantic City had become one of America’s great leisure capitals, home to grand seaside hotels, beauty pageants, and supper clubs, frequented by legendary performers like Frank Sinatra, Duke Ellington, and The Beatles. Jessica Chapel, Condé Nast Traveler, 23 May 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for pageants
Noun
  • The record-breaking heat wave forced the cancellation of several parades and other events in the area.
    Mike Snider, USA Today, 5 July 2026
  • Fairfax, Leesburg, Takoma Park and Laurel also canceled their July Fourth parades because of the heat.
    Kyla Guilfoil, NBC news, 5 July 2026
Noun
  • The report argues that the museum has deemphasized America’s founding, noting the absence of major exhibits devoted to the Founding Fathers or key events of the American Revolution as the country marks its 250th anniversary.
    Thao Nguyen, USA Today, 6 July 2026
  • Well, The Castle was really the Smithsonian for almost 30 years, that it was built in 1855, and all the research, all the exhibits, all the science was here.
    NBC news, NBC news, 5 July 2026
Noun
  • Vogue Business assessed the 64 shows and presentations published on Vogue Runway and contacted each brand to verify the findings (brands were given 48 hours to respond).
    Amy Francombe, Vogue, 6 July 2026
  • Supported by a potent Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 GPU, ample RAM, and a generous 1TB SSD, the OmniBook 7 can handle any massive data sets, lengthy presentations, and more while running several programs at once.
    Kelsey Fogarty, PC Magazine, 4 July 2026
Noun
  • Andrew Raftery Two forceful exhibitions have shown how Indian artists and presses met the cultural upheaval of the nineteenth century with lithographic prints that rendered Hindu gods more approachable and helped to galvanize national identity.
    The New York Review of Books, The New York Review of Books, 4 July 2026
  • Alongside his acting career, Baker had, by the 1970s, established himself as a painter and sculpture with exhibitions in prominent galleries in Los Angeles, New York, and New England.
    Greg Evans, Deadline, 4 July 2026
Noun
  • But what really blew me away was the sheer scale of the panoramas.
    Alexandra Emanuelli, Travel + Leisure, 28 June 2026
  • From a point roughly 1 million miles from Earth, the telescope is expected to survey the cosmos, capturing panoramas of hundreds of millions of stars and billions of galaxies.
    Denise Chow, NBC news, 15 June 2026
Noun
  • McGregor has floated big-money boxing and bareknuckle spectacles, and recently claimed Terence Crawford turned down a nine-figure two-fight deal to face him.
    Brian Mazique, Forbes.com, 4 July 2026
  • Celebrity weddings are often grand spectacles, and Swift is a billionaire.
    Tyler Foggatt, New Yorker, 4 July 2026
Noun
  • Then-Mayor John Lindsay had cut down on ticker-tape extravaganzas for financial and other reasons.
    Anthony Izaguirre, Chicago Tribune, 19 June 2026
  • Production’s involvement in paying for cast extravaganzas is something Monique brought up in a confessional interview during season 10.
    McKinley Franklin, HollywoodReporter, 1 Mar. 2026
Noun
  • Severe thunderstorms are also forecast to develop later in the day, threatening fireworks displays and other outdoor events from the Plains to the Northeast with damaging winds, lightning and heavy downpours.
    Kyla Guilfoil, NBC news, 5 July 2026
  • The broadcast will also feature coverage of fireworks displays at Disneyland Resort.
    Anthony Thompson, USA Today, 4 July 2026

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“Pageants.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/pageants. Accessed 8 Jul. 2026.

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