tamasha

noun

1. A visual art form from Maharashtra, India, involving singing and dancing.

   countable, uncountable

   We had fine clothes, and feasting, and drum-beating, and fireworks let off in our village. It was a grand tamasha!

   c.1885, A.L.O.E. The Wondrous Sickle

2. Any traditional indigenous public ceremony.

   countable, historical, uncountable

   I went to a Tamasha, as the Indian troops call these affairs, one fine Sunday afternoon in May. A broad plateau in the middle of the fields had been selected for the sports, and when I arrived an enormous crowd, as picturesque as any I have ever seen, was thronging round the ropes.

Where it comes from

Borrowed from Marathi तमाशा (tamāśā), from Classical Persian تماشا (tamāšā), ultimately from Arabic مَشَى (mašā, “to walk”).

Adapted from the Wiktionary entry tamasha (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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