parado

Rank 2,500, and it is a parade. That is a better milestone word than the list had any obligation to hand over. A parado is a procession put on to be watched: soldiers, brass, flags, floats, a circus coming down the main street with the band at the front. The verb paradi is to parade in both English senses, marching and showing off, so paradi per sia nova ĉapelo is to swank about in a new hat.

Set it beside procesio, which arrived earlier in this same chapter. A procesio is solemn and usually religious: people walking somewhere together with ceremony. A parado is putting on a show. Both are lines of people moving through a street, and the difference is entirely one of purpose. A funeral is a procesio; a circus arriving in town is a parado, and the circus is exactly where this chapter's own story ends up.

Two other senses worth knowing. In fencing, a parado is a parry, from pari, to ward off a blow, which is the same French family. And in ordinary speech parada means showy, done for effect, so parada uniformo is a dress uniform rather than a working one. The English word carries all three senses too, which for once makes this borrowing entirely free.