parade Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun a ceremonial procession including people marching
  2. noun an extended (often showy) succession of persons or things
    • a parade of strollers on the mall
    • a parade of witnesses
  3. noun a visible display
    • she made a parade of her sorrows
  4. verb walk ostentatiously
    exhibit; march.
    • She parades her new husband around town
  5. verb march in a procession
    promenade; troop.
    • the veterans paraded down the street

WordNet

Pa*rade" noun
Etymology
F., fr. Sp. parada a halt or stopping, an assembling for exercise, a place where troops are assembled to exercise, fr. parar to stop, to prepare. See Pare, v. t.
Definitions
  1. The ground where a military display is held, or where troops are drilled.
  2. (Mil.) An assembly and orderly arrangement or display of troops, in full equipments, for inspection or evolutions before some superior officer; a review of troops. Parades are general, regimental, or private (troop, battery, or company), according to the force assembled.
  3. Pompous show; formal display or exhibition.
    Be rich, but of your wealth make no parade. Swift.
  4. That which is displayed; a show; a spectacle; an imposing procession; the movement of any body marshaled in military order; as, a parade of firemen.
    In state returned the grand parade. Swift.
  5. Posture of defense; guard. A Gallicism.
    When they are not in parade, and upon their guard. Locke.
  6. A public walk; a promenade. Syn. -- Ostentation; display; show. -- Parade, Ostentation. Parade is a pompous exhibition of things for the purpose of display; ostentation now generally indicates a parade of virtues or other qualities for which one expects to be honored. "It was not in the mere parade of royalty that the Mexican potentates exhibited their power." Robertson. "We are dazzled with the splendor of titles, the ostentation of learning, and the noise of victories." Spectator.
Pa*rade" transitive verb
Etymology
Cf. F. parader.
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle Paraded; present participle & verbal noun Parading
Definitions
  1. To exhibit in a showy or ostentatious manner; to show off.
    Parading all her sensibility. Byron.
  2. To assemble and form; to marshal; to cause to maneuver or march ceremoniously; as, to parade troops.
Pa*rade" intransitive verb
Definitions
  1. To make an exhibition or spectacle of one's self, as by walking in a public place.
  2. To assemble in military order for evolutions and inspection; to form or march, as in review.

Webster 1913