theater

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See also: Theater

English

Alternative forms

  • theatre (standard spelling in all English-speaking countries that use British spelling)

Etymology

From Middle English theater, theatre, from Old French theatre, from Latin theatrum, from Ancient Greek θέατρον (théatron, “a place for viewing”), from θεάομαι (theáomai, “to see", "to watch", "to observe”).

Pronunciation

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Noun

theater (countable and uncountable, plural theaters) (American spelling)

  1. A place or building, consisting of a stage and seating, in which an audience gathers to watch plays, musical performances, public ceremonies, and so on.
    • (Can we date this quote by Oscar Wilde and provide title, author’s full name, and other details?):
      The theater is not merely the meeting place of all the arts, it is also the return of art to life.
  2. A region where a particular action takes place; a specific field of action, usually with reference to war.
    His grandfather was in the Pacific theater during the war.
  3. A lecture theatre.
  4. (medicine) An operating theatre or locale for human experimentation.
    This man is about to die, get him into theater at once!
  5. (US) A cinema.
    We sat in the back row of the theater and threw popcorn at the screen.
  6. Drama or performance as a profession or art form.
    I worked in theater for twenty-five years.
  7. Any place rising by steps like the seats of a theater.

Usage notes

  • The spelling theatre is the main spelling in British English, with theater being rare.
  • In United States English, theater accounts for about 80 percent of usage in the major corpus of usage, COCA.
  • Among American theatre professionals, there is some usage of the two spellings in order to differentiate between the location theater (as in definitions 1-5) and the art-form theatre (definition 6). A variant of this differentiation is the usage of theatre for things relating to live performances (as in definitions 1 and 6) with theater being used for all other uses.

Derived terms

Translations

medicine: operating theatre — see operating theatre
cinema — see cinema
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

See also

Anagrams

Dutch

Dutch Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia nl

Etymology

From Old French theatre, from Latin theatrum, from Ancient Greek θέατρον (théatron, “a place for viewing”), from θεάομαι (theáomai, “to see", "to watch", "to observe”).

Pronunciation

Noun

theater n (plural theaters, diminutive theatertje n)

  1. theater (US), theatre (Commonwealth): either drama, the art form, or a drama theater (building)

Synonyms

Derived terms

Descendants

  • Afrikaans: teater

Middle English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Old French theatre, from Latin theatrum, from Ancient Greek θέατρον (théatron).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /tɛːˈatər/, /θɛːˈatər/, /tɛːˈaːtər/, /θɛːˈaːtər/

Noun

theater

  1. A theatre open to the sky; an amphitheatre.
  2. Any stage which plays and performances take place at.
  3. (rare) A whorehouse.

Descendants

References

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