Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun An ornamental flower garden having the beds and paths arranged to form a pattern.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In horticulture, a system of beds of different shapes and sizes in which flowers are cultivated, arranged in some design or plan, with intervening spaces of gravel or turf.
- noun The part of the floor of a theater beneath the galleries: in some modern English theaters called the pit—a sense to be distinguished from the original meaning of pit.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Hort.) An ornamental and diversified arrangement of beds or plots, in which flowers are cultivated, with intervening spaces of gravel or turf for walking on.
- noun France The pit of a theater; the parquet.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
flowerbed , particularly an elevated one (Wikipedia). - noun A garden with paths between such flowerbeds.
- noun A theater
balcony , especially in an opera house; above the box seats, but definitely below family circle (Wikipedia). - noun US, New York An apartment
balcony .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun an ornamental flower garden; beds and paths are arranged to form a pattern
- noun seating at the rear of the main floor (beneath the balconies)
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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From the middle of the parterre is a descent by many steps flying on each side of a grotto that lies between them (covered with lead and flat) into the lower garden, which is all fruit trees ranged about the several quarters of a wilderness, which is very shady; the walks here are all green, the grotto embellished with figures of shell rock work, fountains, and water works.
Letters from Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple (1652-54) 1888
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But the word parterre, even the idea of a parterre, fit.
Archive 2008-08-01 Theodora Goss 2008
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But the word parterre, even the idea of a parterre, fit.
Parterre Theodora Goss 2008
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"My dear Fleda! if my eyes cannot rest upon that development of elegance, the parterre is become a wilderness to me!"
Queechy 1854
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In the centre of the parterre is a figure with a trident, which represents the Morava, the national river of Servia, and is in reality a Roman statue found near
Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family or, A Residence in Belgrade and Travels in the Highlands and Woodlands of the Interior, during the years 1843 and 1844. Andrew Archibald Paton 1842
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But during those twenty years Nature had made herself a garden of flowers, a blooming "parterre" for her own enjoyment, just as an artist gives himself the delight of painting a picture for his own happiness.
Sons of the Soil Honor�� de Balzac 1824
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Smokey déguisé en brin d'herbe ou en fleur de parterre .....
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(Smokey disguised as a blade of grass) ou en fleur de parterre .....
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Richardson & Wrench The property has dry-stone walls, a vegetable garden, citrus orchard and parterre, or ornamental garden shown with peony trees and roses.
Australian Country Estate Vanessa Ko 2012
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Smokey déguisé en brin d'herbe ou en fleur de parterre .....
French Word-A-Day: 2010
jaime_d commented on the word parterre
from Thoreau's A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
July 19, 2009
chained_bear commented on the word parterre
"Plant in this boughs of green, bushes, and all the flowers that can be filled in. Nothing is prettier, in the centre of a table, than this little parterre. . . . Variety may be made by adding rocks, vases, and columns to the parterre; vases of flowers, at the corners of the table, may also be added."
—Susan Williams, Savory Suppers and Fashionable Feasts: Dining in Victorian America (New York: Pantheon Books, 1985), 153
May 3, 2010