pageant, a large-scale, spectacular theatrical production or procession. In its earlier meanings the term denoted specifically a car or float designed for the presentation of religious plays or cycles. By extension, the term came to mean not only the apparatus for the presentations but the presentations themselves. Because these plays were generally accompanied by great ceremony and showmanship, pageant has come to mean also any lavish production, whether indoors or outdoors, without regard to any specifically religious content. The showy public procession known as a parade is a type of pageant.

Pageants are usually used as a means of expressing national, communal, religious, or other kinds of group purpose or identity. In primitive societies processions have always been one of the most basic demonstrations of communal unity. The occasions for such processions varied greatly, ranging from fertility rites to the casting out of evil spirits to displays of military strength. Once such periods of festivity and spectacle have been established, they and the customs and processions connected with them have tended to be passed down from one culture to the next. Thus, for example, the carnival processions that precede Lent in many Roman Catholic countries are probably derived from the ancient Roman pagan feasts of the Saturnalia, the Lupercalia, and the Bacchanalia, which were occasions for parades, music, sacrifices, and general merrymaking.