whispering gallery

American

noun

a space or gallery beneath a dome or broad arch in which low sounds produced at any of certain points are clearly audible at certain other distant points.

whispering gallery British

noun

a gallery or dome with acoustic characteristics such that a sound made at one point is audible at distant points

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of whispering gallery

First recorded in 1690–1700

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:

whispering gallery

In the same way that the architecture of a whispering gallery bends and focuses sound waves, WGM microresonators confine and concentrate light in a tiny circular path.

From Science Daily ● Apr. 26, 2024

A whispering gallery is to be constructed with a length of 150 feet.

From Textbooks ● Feb. 13, 2015

If a whispering gallery has a length of 120 feet, and the foci are located 30 feet from the center, find the height of the ceiling at the center.

From Textbooks ● Feb. 13, 2015

The new sensor differs from earlier whispering gallery resonators in that it is itself a miniature laser rather than the resonating cavity of an external laser.

From US News ● Jun. 29, 2011

The still, brimstone-coloured waters were glassy smooth, and not a breath stirred within the deep suffocating crater, where the fall of a pin produced an echo like that of a whispering gallery.

From The Highlands of Ethiopia by William Cornwallis Harris

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023