theater

or the·a·tre

[ thee-uh-ter, theeuh- ]
See synonyms for: theatertheaters on Thesaurus.com

noun
  1. a building, part of a building, or outdoor area for housing dramatic performances or stage entertainments, or for showing movies.

  2. the audience at a theatrical performance or movie: The whole theater was weeping.

  1. a theatrical or acting company.

  2. a room or hall, fitted with tiers of seats rising like steps, used for lectures, surgical demonstrations, etc.: Students crowded into the operating theater.

  3. the theater, dramatic performances as a branch of art; the field or discipline of staged drama: an actress devoted to the theater.

  4. Often the theater . dramatic works collectively, as of literature, a nation, or an author: the theater of Ibsen.

  5. the quality or effectiveness of dramatic performance: good theater;bad theater;pure theater.

  6. a place of dramatic action, especially during a war: the Pacific theater during World War II.: See also theater of war.

  7. a public display of action or speech that gives a false impression of accomplishing or promising something, merely for the sake of appearances (often used in combination): Washington D.C.'s Metro transit system has instituted random bag searches, and many travelers are just as unhappy about the security theater on the train as in the airport.Public health experts have said that the time and money spent on cleaning may be unnecessary hygiene theater.Companies need to go beyond diversity theater and commit to long-term, concrete metrics for change.Forget all his blustering about doing what's best for our city—it's just theater to please his union masters and protect his political base.

  8. a natural formation of land rising by steps or gradations.

Origin of theater

1
First recorded in 1325–75; Middle English theatre, from Latin theātrum, from Greek théātron “seeing place, theater,” equivalent to theā-, stem of theâsthai “to view” + -tron suffix denoting means or place

pronunciation note For theater

Theater, an early Middle English borrowing from French, originally had its primary stress on the second syllable: [French tey-ah-truh]. /French teɪˈɑ trə/. As with many early French borrowings ( beauty, carriage, marriage ), the stress moved to the first syllable, in conformity with a common English pattern of stress, and this pattern remains the standard one for theater today: [thee-uh-ter]. /ˈθi ə tər/. A pronunciation with stress on the second syllable and the vowel [ey], /eɪ/, as [thee-ey-ter] /θiˈeɪ tər/ or sometimes [thee-ey-ter] /ˈθiˌeɪ tər/ is characteristic chiefly of a nonstandard regional pronunciation in the United States that may be perceived as uneducated.

Other words for theater

Other words from theater

  • non·the·a·ter, adjective
  • pre·the·a·ter, adjective

Words Nearby theater

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use theater in a sentence