ambience
Americannoun
plural
ambiencesnoun
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.
The alternative, Red Ambience, drenches the car in a fathomless shade of garnet metallic.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 2, 2026
“No firmes nada,” a union organizer shouted into a bullhorn as he stood atop the flatbed of a truck outside Ambience Apparel, doling out battlefield legal advice not to sign anything.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 12, 2025
Ambience is not just about aesthetics, but the sensory experience.
From Seattle Times • Apr. 28, 2023
He takes the bag home, where his wife, Ambience, asks, “Are we in more trouble now than we’ve ever been before?”
From New York Times • Jan. 21, 2020
Ambience trumps corporeality in photos such as Gabriela Augero’s diptych of a person at a window and Armaghan Mehrabian’s study of a shrouded woman in a darkened space.
From Washington Post • Jul. 21, 2016
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.
