ambience
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of ambience
First recorded in 1885–90
Explanation
Ambience is another word for atmosphere in the sense of the mood a place or setting has. If an expensive restaurant has soft lighting and peaceful music, it has a pleasant, soothing ambience. Ambience is one of those words that we've out and out stolen from French. In French, the word meaning the same thing is, you guessed it, ambience. This is a word you're going to want to know if you have any interest in restaurant reviews — they always want to talk about the ambience. As a funny quirk, the word has a positive feel to it; it can be used to mean nice atmosphere without even using the word, nice, as in, "Hey, this place really has ambience."
Vocabulary lists containing ambience
"They Speak for Success" and "Breaking the Ice"
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"First Love Language" by Stefany Valentine, Broken Hearts and Broken Homes–A Different Love Language
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Somewhere Between Bitter and Sweet
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
As a result, the “Murder” crew used E!’s existing permits, credentials and technicians to more economically capture festival exteriors and Croisette ambience.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 12, 2026
Chipped conch shells and scattered bone whistles point to a musical ambience.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 23, 2026
That charged ambience has taken on new meaning after Ghana's famed Highlife music was inscribed recently on UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list, a major international recognition of one of west Africa's most influential musical traditions.
From Barron's ● Jan. 9, 2026
I decided to light the warehouse with a red light to lend the energy of his music to this shoot and a very moody light for Sombr to reflect the ambience of his songs.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 23, 2025
Her father-in-law’s intention, she supposed, was to create an ambience of solidity and family tradition.
From "Atonement" by Ian McEwan
Its headquarters on the Avenue Montaigne are barely 3 miles from the Parc des Princes, but the ambiences are worlds apart.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 4, 2026
The color palette, the ambiences, the use of natural light.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 26, 2024
Capturing as much of that as possible added to the authenticity — and not to mention that I went out and recorded a bunch of the ambiences.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 15, 2023
Now he brings his epic and oceanic ambiences to a challenging new musical landscape: indoors.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 27, 2010
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
