revelry

revelry — noun

1. loud, lively celebration where large groups of people eat, drink, dance, and sin

1.nounC1
Definition

loud, lively celebration where large groups of people eat, drink, dance, and sing, often in public spaces and continuing late into the night

Example

After the wedding ceremony, the revelry in the town square continued well past midnight.

collocation: revelry in [location]

The sound of revelry from the carnival parade could be heard several blocks away.

sound of revelry — sensory context

Common collocations
  • drunken revelry
  • late-night revelry
  • street revelry
  • public revelry
  • loud revelry
  • join the revelry
  • sound of revelry
  • scene of revelry
Synonyms
  • merrymaking

    more old-fashioned and literary; suggests cheerful fun rather than wild behaviour

  • carousing

    emphasises heavy drinking in a group; stronger negative connotation

  • celebration

    neutral and broader; lacks the 'noisy/unrestrained' element

  • festivities

    more neutral, often refers to planned events rather than spontaneous partying

Antonyms
  • sobriety

    the state of being serious and not drinking

  • solemnity

    formal seriousness, the opposite of lively celebration

Usage Note

Often carries a mildly critical or disapproving tone when used to describe others' behaviour, especially with modifiers such as drunken or noisy. More common in literary and journalistic writing than in everyday conversation.

Word family

  • revel
    verbC1
  • reveler
    nounC1
  • reveller
    nounC1

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

Revelry stands apart from its synonyms by combining three elements: noise, public setting, and an edge of excess. Merrymaking is the closest in meaning but carries an old-fashioned, almost fairy-tale tone — you might read about 'Yuletide merrymaking' in a Victorian novel, but modern reporting uses revelry. Carousing focuses narrowly on heavy drinking in a group and almost always implies disapproval ('carousing till all hours'). Celebration is the broad, neutral term — it covers everything from a quiet birthday dinner to a national holiday, so it lacks the unruly energy that revelry captures. Festivities refers to planned, organized events (fireworks, parades, formal dinners), whereas revelry often describes spontaneous, rowdy partying. You might say 'the festivities began at noon with a parade', but 'the revelry kept the neighbours awake until 3 a.m.'

merrymakingcarousingcelebration ↗festivities

Common collocations

Nouns

  • sound of revelry
  • scene of revelry
  • night of revelry

Phrases

  • drunken revelry
  • late-night revelry
  • street revelry
  • public revelry
  • loud revelry

Prepositions

  • revelry in [location]
  • revelry at [event]

Etymology

LatinOld FrenchMiddle EnglishEnglish

Revelry comes from the Middle English word revel, meaning 'noisy merrymaking', which was borrowed from Old French reveler ('to be disorderly, to make noise'). That French verb traces back to Latin rebellare ('to rebel'), originally referring to noisy protest or uprising. The '-ry' suffix turns the action into a collective noun, similar to 'footery' or 'poetry' — so revelry literally means 'the practice or result of reveling'. The shift from 'rebellious noise' to 'drunken celebration' happened in medieval French, and English adopted the celebratory sense by the 1400s.