Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Parterre
1.
(Hort.)
An ornamental and diversified arrangement of beds or plots, in which flowers are cultivated, with intervening spaces of gravel or turf for walking on.
2.
The pit of a theater; the parquet.
[France]
Webster 1828 Edition
Parterre
PARTERRE
,Noun.
Definition 2024
Parterre
parterre
parterre
English
Noun
parterre (plural parterres)
- (horticulture) A flowerbed, particularly an elevated one.
- (horticulture) A garden with paths between such flowerbeds.
- 2015 August 29, Sarah Raven, “The stately home garden where you can pick-and-eat all summer [print version: Pick-and-eat planting for the modern parterre, page 5]”, in The Daily Telegraph (Gardening), archived from the original on 3 September 2015:
- Parham House, near Pulborough in West Sussex, has a four-acre walled garden that was restored in the Twenties and has been maintained at a high level ever since. It is divided into four areas, one of which is filled by the cut-flower borders and a box-enclosed parterre. […] It is traditional in a parterre to mix flowers and veg, but this relaxed jungle of productive plants, packed in tight together, is lusher and more beautiful than the more usual Villandry style, where single or pairs of plants are used.
-
- (theater) A part of the section of theater seats located on the ground floor, on the same level as the orchestra.
- 1907, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, “chapter III”, in The Younger Set (Project Gutenberg; EBook #14852), New York, N.Y.: A. L. Burt Company, published 1 February 2005 (Project Gutenberg version), OCLC 4241346:
- That was Selwyn's first encounter with the Ruthvens. A short time afterward at the opera Gerald dragged him into a parterre to say something amiable to one of the amiable débutante Craig girls—and Selwyn found himself again facing Alixe.
-
- (theater, by extension) That part of a theater audience seated in the parterre, sometimes regarded as belonging to a lower social class.
- (US, New York) An apartment balcony.