Catchword: kayfabe

Filed Under: English, Entertainment, Slang

Part of Speech: n.

Quotation: All participants, including fans, present others with at least a bit of a “kayfabe,” a term which is taken from nineteenth-century carnival, medicine show, and sideshow practice and simply refers to a con or deception. Kayfabe can also, less pejoratively, refer to participants’ self-promotional, rhetorically inflated, and somewhat truth-obfuscating patter that resembles that of the talkers at the traditional sideshow. A kayfabian, then, is a con artist; most wrestlers are proud to be called kayfabians because it means they’re in on the (con) game.

Author:
Sharon Mazer

Article, Document, Publication, Web Site:
Professional Wrestling: Sport and Spectacle

Date of Publication:
Feb. 1, 1998

Page Number:
22-23

This cite belongs to a full entry for kayfabe.