carnival

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“
Apart from the recipe book, the other thing I bought from the carnival was a football jersey.

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Definitions (9)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. noun The period of merrymaking and feasting celebrated just before Lent.
  2. noun A traveling amusement show usually including rides, games, and sideshows.
  3. noun A festival or revel: winter carnival.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (2)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

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Examples (50)

  • Do you suppose that you could give them the idea we want to go back where we came from Not much chance of that for a while yet And indeed the carnival was at its height. —  Wonder Stories Quarterly Summer 1932
  • The stock features of the carnival are as familiar as elephants at the circus. —  Omni: March 1995
  • Fabulous! blog carnival, which is "all about appearances". —  ScienceBlogs Channel : Life Science
  • The two regions made it through again in 2007, when FNC won the title outright for the first time, then last year the carnival was abandoned because of flooding rain. —  northernstar.com.au: The Northern Star
  • The event has been called off in the past as the Jack Brabham Park surface was deemed too hard to play rugby league on, and now difficulty in finding a date for the carnival is the problem this year. —  Central Western Daily
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Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Italian carnevale, from Old Italian carnelevare, Shrovetide : carne, meat (from Latin carō, carn-; see sker-1 in Indo-European roots) + levare, to remove (from Latin levāre, to raise; see legwh- in Indo-European roots).

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. Formerly carnaval = Dutch karnaval = Danish Swedish G. karneval, from French carnaval = Spanish Portuguese carnaval, from Italian carnovale, carnevale, the last three days before Lent; understood in popular etymology as made up of Italian carn, flesh, and vale, farewell, as if ‘farewell, flesh!’ but prob. a corruption of Middle Latin carnelevamen, also carnelevarium, carnilevaria, carnelevale, Shrovetide, literally the ‘solace of the flesh,’ permitted in anticipation of the Lenten fast, for L. carnis levamen (or Middle Latin *levarium): carnis, genitive of caro, flesh (see carnal); levamen, solace, lightening, from levare, lighten, from levis, light: see alleviate. The season was also called carnem-laxare, ‘flesh-relaxing,’ carniscapium, ‘flesh-taking,’ carnivora, ‘flesh-eating,’ as well as carniprivium, ‘flesh-privation,’ properly applied to the beginning of Lent.
 

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/ˈkɑrnɪvəl/
by American Heritage
by Lee Davis-Thalbourne
by jrome

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