fanfare

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See also: Fanfare

English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Borrowed from French fanfare.

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

fanfare (countable and uncountable, plural fanfares)

  1. (countable) A flourish of trumpets or horns as to announce; a short and lively air performed on hunting horns during the chase.
    They played a short fanfare to announce the arrival of the king.
    • 1942 February, O. S. Nock, “The Locomotives of Sir Nigel Gresley: Part VII”, in Railway Magazine, page 44:
      This new locomotive was turned out of Doncaster works in May, 1934, to a mighty fanfare of trumpets.
  2. (countable, uncountable) A show of ceremony or celebration.
    The town opened the new library with fanfare and a speech from the mayor.
    • 2020 December 2, Paul Bigland, “My weirdest and wackiest Rover yet”, in Rail, page 67:
      I have arrived to catch the 0830 TfW service to Crewe, worked by a tatty and unrefurbished 175114. As if ashamed of its appearance, it slinks into Platform 2 (instead of Platform 1, where it was expected). No announcement had been made, and we leave without any fanfare.
    • 2021 May 15, Phil McNulty, “Chelsea 0-1 Leicester”, in BBC Sport‎[1]:
      Fans relished the traditional FA Cup fanfare from the Coldstream Guards and the hymn Abide With Me before throwing themselves wholeheartedly into an experience they have been largely deprived of since the first coronavirus lockdown began in March 2020.

Translations[edit]

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Verb[edit]

fanfare (third-person singular simple present fanfares, present participle fanfaring, simple past and past participle fanfared)

  1. To play a fanfare.
    • 1887, Truth - Volume 22, page 33:
      At this the trumpeters again most earnestly fanfared,
    • 1993, James W. Gousseff, Street Mime, →ISBN, page 168:
      The miscreant is shamed into just standing there mortified and not fanfaring at all while the others finish the greeting to the arriving guest.
    • 2005, Christine Davidson, The Darkling and the Lady, →ISBN:
      A hundred trumpets fanfared as they entered, echoing brazenly in the black vault above.
    • 2009, Rona Sharon, Royal Blood, →ISBN:
      Trumpets, tabors, shawms, and pipes fanfared the court to the midday repast in the presence chamber.
    • 2014, Charles J Harwood, Nora, →ISBN:
      In the next room, a vending machine fanfared a five-note bar.
  2. (music) To embellish with fanfares.
    • 1946, John Hugh Brignal Peel, Mere England: a poem, page 49:
      Today the mower's metal music fanfared summer's choir of motley symphonies and high concertos piped or chanted from a treetop, droned above the pollen bee flowers, babbled over stony brook-beds, whispered by the whine of willow,
    • 2008, Ian MacDonald, Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties, →ISBN, page 364:
      PAM is a guitar song fanfared by massive chords on an acoustic 12-string (probably (ribbed From The Who's contemporary hit 'Pinball Wizard').
  3. To imitate a fanfare, in order to dramatize the presentation or introduction of something.
    • 2008, Hugo Soskin, The Cook, the Rat and the Heretic, →ISBN:
      The name of the farm we were staying on was, tun-tun-tah,' I fanfared dramatically, 'Le Tomple, the temple. Spooky eh?'
    • 2010, Ian McDonald, Ares Express, →ISBN:
      'Wooooeeee!' fanfared Sweetness Asiim Engineer, throwing her head back and letting her greasy bonny black hair reel out behind her like a banner of anarchy.
    • 2014, David Barry, Careless Talk: Secrets and Lies in a town near London, →ISBN:
      'Ta-ra!' fan-fared Jackie, showing off her dress.
  4. To introduce with pomp and show.
    • 1959, Anthony Burgess, Beds in the East (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 463:
      Grindingly, laths of wood yielded to brown and yellow hands, a wrenching and screaming of twisted nails fanfared the discovery of the treasure beneath.
    • 1990, Leonard M. Trawick, World, Self, Poem, →ISBN, page 32:
      Cohorts of charabancs fanfared Offa's province and his concern, negotiating the by-ways from Teme to Trent.
    • 2008, Rachel Falconer, The Crossover Novel, →ISBN:
      It could be fêted and fanfared and ushered into the white-tie events with a guest pass that read Literature with a capital 'L'.
    • 2013, Philip Melling, Fundamentalism in America, →ISBN, page 100:
      There is a stylishness in his parody of the Resurrection when he arrives in Israel in a robe and cape, fanfared by the Israeli Army Band, 'as though Christ himself were returning to the Mount of Olives
    • 2014, M. F. Dail, Limbodeswill's Wain, →ISBN, page 383:
      Brilliantly fanfared by a magic lantern held up for the illumination of wishful thinking, optimism fades into a make-shift omission larger than life, for the faintly foreseeable future.
  5. To mark an arrival or departure with music, noise, or drama.
    • 2005, Lesley Zobian, The Hanged Man, →ISBN, page 82:
      She stepped neatly into the fray, took up Rover's slack lead and marched him briskly in a northerly direction away from the miniature foe, their retreat fanfared by the triumphant sound of the terrier who obviously thought he had bested an unworthy opponent, and who strutted after them for a few yards, just to make sure they moved well off his territory.
    • 2006, Dominic Head, The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English, →ISBN, page 271:
      Among the memorable characters in this epic enterprise are the power-hungry Kenneth Widmerpool, whose beginnings are inauspicious, but who eventually achieves formidable influence through a series of ruthless manoeuvres, and Sir Magnus Donners, at whose mansion World War II is fanfared with a charade of the seven deadly sins.
    • 2007, Andrew Mueller, I Wouldn't Start from Here, →ISBN, page 321:
      The windows of his family's house had been blown in by the air raids that fanfared Desert Storm, and he'd been shaken awake by American cruise missile strikes in June 1993 and December 1998.
    • 2008, Ann Burnett, Loving Mother, →ISBN, page 258:
      The daffodils I planted in the autumn are marching their way along the path, strident trumpets fanfaring the first warmish day of the year.
    • 2009, Jerry White, London in the Twentieth Century: A City and Its People, →ISBN, page 226:
      The 1920s and 1930s consolidated the rise in the standard of life of the London working class that the First World War had so unexpectedly fanfared.
    • 2010, Gregory Dark, Charming!, →ISBN, page 25:
      Horatio was despatched to summon Philomena. Whose arrival was fanfared with a rip-roarer of a belch, one of such thunderous proportions that the crystal of the chandeliers tinkled and the glass in the windows rattled.
    • 2012, Stephen Moss, Wild Hares and Hummingbirds, →ISBN, page 238:
      In spring, their arrival is fanfared by a burst of unfamiliar song, followed by the welcome sight of the birds themselves, but in autumn they make a quiet departure with no signal.
  6. To publicize or announce.
    • 1989, Roy Porter, Health for Sale: Quackery in England, 1660-1850, →ISBN, page 131:
      So, did quacks cash in on this, fanfaring their own capacity to quell pain?
    • 2006, Ian MacDonald, Raymond Clarke, The New Shostakovich, →ISBN, page 104:
      The launch pad for this was the Seventeenth Party Congress in January 1934, fanfared by press editorials and street slogans assuring the Soviet people that 'Life has become better, life has become happier'.
    • 2012, Douglas Thompson, Mafialand, →ISBN:
      It was fanfared as 'hello, 1964' and advertised as 'the place billionaires goto get away from millionaires'.
    • 2014, Frances Kay, Allan Esler Smith, The Good Retirement Guide 2014, →ISBN:
      My final pick from my fortnight of engaging with the cold callers was 'Sasha' from The Consumer Centre which, she fanfared, acted for leading UK businesses and charities (I will not name the firms she said she was representing but they are all highly regarded names who I imagine would run a mile from Sasha and her colleagues).
  7. To fan out.
    • 2000, Veronica Patterson, Swan, what Shores?, →ISBN, page 11:
      Just so, light beaded on tin lanterns, drops fanfared from sprinklers, minnows fluted in pools.
    • 2010, Gudmundina Haflidason, Amid The Rubble of World War II, →ISBN, page 213:
      These autumn flowers were in full bloom, fanfaring in the cool autumn wind.
    • 2011, John Tippey, Generally Farting About, →ISBN, page 415:
      Pennants waved, fireworks pranced, fanfaring across the iridescent harbor as the children of the children's, children's, children's, children, danced and held onto the mutual celebration of a past deep shared, and gone forever.

Dutch[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Borrowed from French fanfare.

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

fanfare f (plural fanfaren or fanfares)

  1. A band consisting of brass, saxophone and percussion players.
  2. A fanfare (flourish).
  3. hubbub, excitement, commotion.
  4. The act of boasting, bloviation.

Descendants[edit]

  • Afrikaans: fanfare

French[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Probably from Arabic فَرْفَار (farfār); see fanfaron (“boaster”).

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

fanfare f (plural fanfares)

  1. (music) fanfare

Descendants[edit]

Further reading[edit]

Italian[edit]

Noun[edit]

fanfare f

  1. plural of fanfara

Anagrams[edit]

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