uncelebration

English

Etymology

un- +‎ celebration

Noun

uncelebration (plural uncelebrations)

1. A memorial of something bad.
   • 1990, Robert Reginald Garnett, From Grimes to Brideshead: The Early Novels of Evelyn Waugh, →ISBN:

     Discussing Men at Arms, the first volume of his later war trilogy, Waugh explained that it "was a kind of uncelebration, a history of Guy Crouchback's disillusion with the army.

   • 1998, Michele Gillespie, Catherine Clinton, Taking Off the White Gloves: Southern Women and Women Historians, →ISBN:

     In her essay, she took her cue from the conflicted uncelebrations surrounding the five-hundredth anniversary of Columbus's contact with the Americas.

   • 2007, Dana Stabenow, A Deeper Sleep, →ISBN, page 152:

     He and Bobby Clark had a lot in common, and he was first on the guest list to Bobby's vets-only annual uncelebration of the Tet Offensive.

2. A celebration that lacks any celebratory feeling or actions.
   • 1978, Cars & Parts - Volume 21, page 26:

     In contrast to all the whooppee that surrounded the Corvette's Silver Anniversary the observation of its 10th year of existence in 1962 had all the trappings of an uncelebration.

   • 1983, Hugh Fleetwood, A Dance to the Glory of God, page 78:

     And the idea of a celebration that celebrated only her, or a celebration that celebrated only celebration, struck her as being cold, narcissistic, and ultimately sterile; a joyless uncelebration in fact.

   • 2008, Gerald Vizenor, Survivance: Narratives of Native Presence, →ISBN, page 341:

     If the Osage or Wazhazhe reference scheme is celebratory, not to say mythic and historic, the follow-on Las Vegas reference scheme is all uncelebration.