German

Noun

Fanfare f ‎(genitive Fanfare, plural Fanfaren)

1. (flourish of trumpets or horns) fanfare

English

Noun

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.

2. (uncountable) A show of ceremony or celebration.

   The town opened the new library with fanfare and a speech from the mayor.

Translations

Verb

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 0871291754, 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 1920972242:

     A hundred trumpets fanfared as they entered, echoing brazenly in the black vault above.

   • 2009, Rona Sharon, Royal Blood, ISBN 0758240880:

     Trumpets, tabors, shawms, and pipes fanfared the court to the midday repast in the presence chamber.

   • 2014, Charles J Harwood, Nora, ISBN 1497370477:

     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 0099526794, 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 0857653989:

     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 1625670745:

     '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 178166322X:

     'Ta-ra!' fan-fared Jackie, showing off her dress.

4. To introduce with pomp and show.
   • 1990, Leonard M. Trawick, World, Self, Poem, ISBN 0873384199, 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 1135865000:

     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 1135962227, 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 1490729577, 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 0595342159, 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 0521831792, 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 1405038004, 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 0955854008, 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 1407013076, 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 1846943833, 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 0099552469, 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 0719019036, 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 184595064X, 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 1780574819:

     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 0749470909:

     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 0814766854, 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 1450070647, page 213:

     These autumn flowers were in full bloom, fanfaring in the cool autumn wind.

   • 2011, John Tippey, Generally Farting About, ISBN 1456868403, 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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /fɑnfarə/

Noun

fanfare c ‎(plural fanfaren or fanfares)

1. A brass band, with percussion.
2. A fanfare (flourish).

French

Etymology

Probably from Arabic فَرْفَار ‎(farfār), see fanfaron.

Noun

fanfare f ‎(plural fanfares)

1. (music) fanfare

Italian

Noun

fanfare f

1. plural of fanfara

Anagrams

• affrena