Definify.com

Webster 1828 Edition


Theater

THE'ATER


Definition 2024


Theater

Theater

See also: theater

German

Noun

Theater n (genitive Theaters, plural Theater)

  1. theater, theatre

Declension

theater

theater

See also: Theater

English

Alternative forms

  • theatre (standard spelling in all English-speaking countries except the USA)

Noun

theater (plural theaters)

  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?) Oscar Wilde:
      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 artform.
    I worked in the theater for twenty-five years.

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

See also

  • Appendix:Glossary of theatre

Anagrams


Dutch

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /teˈjaːtər/
  • Hyphenation: the‧a‧ter

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).

Noun

theater n (plural theaters, diminutive theatertje n)

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

Synonyms