theatre

Definition from Wiktionary, a free dictionary

Contents 1 English 1.1 Etymology 1.2 Noun 1.2.1 Usage notes 1.3 Verb 1.4 Anagrams

[edit] English

[edit] Etymology

See theater. The -re spelling is due to influence from French théâtre.

[edit] Noun

theatre (plural theatres)

1. (British) Alternative spelling of theater.
2. (US) Often used specifically of playhouses and drama, so as to distinguish from moviehouses and cinema.

[edit] Usage notes

• The spelling theatre is the main spelling in Commonwealth English, with theater being rare.
• The spelling theater is the predominant American spelling; it accounts for about 80% of usage in COCA (the major corpus of American English).

[edit] Verb

to theatre (third-person singular simple present theatres, present participle theatring, simple past and past participle theatred)

1. (Can we verify⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) (New Zealand) An informal request to cease a labouring or argumentative conversation. Commonly used on PA System, a well-known New Zealand blog. (Orig.) arising from the absurdism of shouting 'theatre' in a theatre, the term has undergone semantic broadening to include any absurd thread development.

   "I theatre this thread."

   a more common usage is the exclamation "THEATRE" during a heated, and potentially personal, comment exchange.

   discussion of usage disambiguation

[edit] Anagrams

• Alphagram: aeehrtt
• tethera
• theater
• thereat