Other forms: fanfares
A fanfare is a short loud flourish of trumpets. Sound a fanfare, a fanfare of trumpets, without fanfare.
It announces an arrival — a monarch, a champion, the start of something — and it is written for brass because brass carries. It is short by definition: a fanfare that goes on is a piece. Figuratively, with great fanfare means with loud publicity, and without fanfare means quietly, which is the commoner of the two in reporting. Note that the word is French and probably imitative.
1nounfanfareA short loud flourish of trumpets.
“A fanfare of trumpets announced the arrival of the queen.”
2nounpublicityLoud publicity.
“It opened with roughly no fanfare at all.”
fanfare is a musical flourish.
French fanfare is probably imitative of the sound of trumpets, possibly through Spanish. It is one of a small group of musical words English took from French rather than Italian.
French
fanfare
English, today
fanfare
French fanfare; some senses apparently influenced by surface analysis, fan + fare.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Circus & Fairground