Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun See amphitheater.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun UK An open, outdoor theatre, especially one from the classical period of ancient Greece.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an oval large stadium with tiers of seats; an arena in which contests and spectacles are held
  • noun a sloping gallery with seats for spectators (as in an operating room or theater)

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin amphitheatrum, from Ancient Greek ἀμφιθέατρον.

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Examples

  • This amphitheatre is the Val Buona; that little white house is the cottage of Bastian the wood-ranger; yonder pale gigantic pinnacles towering in solitary splendour above the tree-tops to the rear of the cottage, are the crests of the Cristallo.

    Untrodden Peaks and Unfrequented Valleys 1873

  • Nothing to do but pull on a thick balaclava, grab the sled, and go steaming up the hill to the top of what we call the amphitheatre, in the field opposite the main house.

    Via Negativa 2009

  • Nothing to do but pull on a thick balaclava, grab the sled, and go steaming up the hill to the top of what we call the amphitheatre, in the field opposite the main house.

    Via Negativa 2009

  • For the rest it had the finest and vastest prospect all round it I ever saw from any house: from Tyndale Fell to St. Bees Head, all Cumberland as in amphitheatre unmatchable; Galloway mountains,

    New Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle 1893

  • This huge amphitheatre is in course of excavation; and it is quite possible – possible and probable – that inscriptions in the earliest stages of the hieroglyphic writing may there be discovered.

    Pharaohs, Fellahs and Explorers 1891

  • Presiding over the amphitheatre was a beast-headed god, his head half turned away.

    Henry’s Demons Patrick Cockburn 2011

  • Presiding over the amphitheatre was a beast-headed god, his head half turned away.

    Henry’s Demons Patrick Cockburn 2011

  • Sitting directly behind us in the amphitheatre was another artistic inventor from that time who has managed to survive, Victor Moscoso above.

    Hippies on Mount Tam 1: The Musical sfmike 2007

  • Sitting directly behind us in the amphitheatre was another artistic inventor from that time who has managed to survive, Victor Moscoso above.

    Archive 2007-05-01 sfmike 2007

  • Behind the amphitheatre were the thermae of the same emperor Titus Vespasian.

    Travels through France and Italy 2004

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