carnival

1. 1.

   a festival marked by merrymaking and processions

   Broaderfestival

   NarrowerMardi Gras
2. 2.

   a frenetic disorganized (and often comic) disturbance suggestive of a large public entertainment

   “it was so funny it was a circus”

   “the whole occasion had a carnival atmosphere”

   Synonymscircus

   Broaderdisturbance
3. 3.

   a traveling show; having sideshows and rides and games of skill etc.

   Synonymsfairfunfair

   Broadershow

   Partsmidway

Other forms of carnival

plural

carnivals·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about carnival

What does carnival mean?

carnival means "a festival marked by merrymaking and processions". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in carnival?

carnival has 3 syllables: car-ni-val. The stress falls on "car". In IPA it is /ˈkɑɹnəvəl/.

What is another word for carnival?

Close synonyms include circus, fair, funfair. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is carnival a common word?

carnival is banded "Common" — everyday vocabulary in speech and writing. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.