theatre

English Online Dictionary. What means theatre‎? What does theatre mean?

English

Etymology

From Middle English theater, theatre, from Old French theatre, from Latin theatrum, from Ancient Greek θέατρον (théatron, “a place for viewing”), from θεάομαι (theáomai, “to see, watch, observe”).

Noun

theatre (countable and uncountable, plural theatres)

1. (chiefly Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK) Alternative spelling of theater
2. (Canada, rarely Australia and New Zealand) A cinema; movie theatre.

Usage notes

• The spelling theatre is the main spelling in British English, with theater being rare.
• The spelling theater is the predominant American spelling; it accounts for about 80% of usage in COCA (the major corpus of American English). People who work in the theatre industry in the United States, however, usually use the spelling "theatre", especially when writing about the art-form while retaining "theater" to write about the location. The spelling is also used often in advertising.

Derived terms

• theatre organ

Translations

Anagrams

• hat tree, hattree, teareth, tethera, theater, thereat

Middle English

Noun

theatre

1. Alternative form of theater

Middle French

Etymology

Inherited from Old French teatre, theatre, from Latin theātrum, from Ancient Greek θέατρον (théatron, “a place for viewing”), from θεάομαι (theáomai, “to see; to watch; to observe”).

Noun

theatre m (plural theatres)

1. (countable) theater (a place or building, consisting of a stage and seating, in which an audience gathers to watch plays, musical performances, public ceremonies, and so on)

Descendants

• French: théâtre
  • Haitian Creole: teyat
  • → Persian: تئاتر (te'âtr), تیاتر (tiyâtr)
  • → Romanian: teatru
  • → Russian: теа́тр (teátr), теа́тръ (teátr) — Pre-reform orthography (1918), ѳеа́тръ (feátr), феа́тр (feátr) — archaic
    • → Azerbaijani:

      Cyrillic script: театр

      Latin script: teatr

    • → Bashkir: театр (teatr)
    • → Buryat: театр (tjeatr)
    • → Crimean Tatar: teatr
    • → Evenki: театр (teatr)
    • → Kalmyk: театр (teatr)
    • → Kazakh:

      Arabic script: تەاتر

      Cyrillic script: театр (teatr)

      Latin script: teatr

    • → Khakas: театр (teatr)
    • → Kyrgyz: театр (teatr)
    • → Livvi: teatru
    • → Mongolian:

      Cyrillic script: театр (teatr)

      Mongolian script: ᠲᠢᠶᠠᠲ᠋ᠷ (tiyatr)

    • → Southern Altai: театр (teatr)
    • → Tajik: театр (teatr)
    • → Tatar: театр (teatr)
    • → Tuvan: театр (teatr)
    • → Uyghur:

      Cyrillic script: театр (tëatr)

      Arabic script: تىياتىر (tiyatir)

    • ⇒ Uyghur:

      Cyrillic script: театрхана (tëatrxana)

      Arabic script: تىياتىرخانا (tiyatirxana)

    • → Uzbek:

      Cyrillic script: театр (teatr)

      Latin script: teatr

    • → Yakut: театр (teatr), тыйаатыр (tıyaatır), тийээтир (tiyeetir)

References

• THÉÂTRE on Dictionnaire du Moyen Français (1330–1500) (in French)

Old French

Noun

theatre oblique singular, m (oblique plural theatres, nominative singular theatres, nominative plural theatre)

1. Alternative spelling of teatre

References

• theatre on the Anglo-Norman On-Line Hub

Scots

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English theater, theatre, from Old French theatre, from Latin theatrum, from Ancient Greek θέατρον (théatron, “a place for viewing”), from θεάομαι (theáomai, “to see; to watch; to observe”).

Noun

theatre (plural theatres)

1. (countable) theater (a place or building, consisting of a stage and seating, in which an audience gathers to watch plays, musical performances, public ceremonies, and so on)

References

• Eagle, Andy, editor (2025), “theatre”, in The Online Scots Dictionary‎^[2]