AMPHITHEATRE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does amphitheatre mean? 

• AMPHITHEATRE (noun)
  The noun AMPHITHEATRE has 2 senses:

1. a sloping gallery with seats for spectators (as in an operating room or theater)

2. an oval large stadium with tiers of seats; an arena in which contests and spectacles are held

  Familiarity information: AMPHITHEATRE used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• AMPHITHEATRE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A sloping gallery with seats for spectators (as in an operating room or theater)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

amphitheater; amphitheatre

Hypernyms ("amphitheatre" is a kind of...):

gallery (narrow recessed balcony area along an upper floor on the interior of a building; usually marked by a colonnade)

Meronyms (parts of "amphitheatre"):

tiered seat (seating that is arranged in sloping tiers so that spectators in the back can see over the heads of those in front)

Domain category:

dramatic art; dramatics; dramaturgy; theater; theatre (the art of writing and producing plays)

Derivation:

amphitheatrical (of or related to an amphitheater)

Sense 2

Meaning:

An oval large stadium with tiers of seats; an arena in which contests and spectacles are held

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

amphitheater; amphitheatre; coliseum

Hypernyms ("amphitheatre" is a kind of...):

arena; bowl; sports stadium; stadium (a large structure for open-air sports or entertainments)

Meronyms (parts of "amphitheatre"):

vomitory (an entrance to an amphitheater or stadium)

Instance hyponyms:

Amphitheatrum Flavium; Colosseum (a large amphitheater in Rome whose construction was begun by Vespasian about AD 75 or 80)

Derivation:

amphitheatrical (of or related to an amphitheater)

 Context examples 

He lifted his hand and opened his eyelids; gazed blank, and with a straining effort, on the sky, and toward the amphitheatre of trees: one saw that all to him was void darkness.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The Alps here come closer to the lake, and we approached the amphitheatre of mountains which forms its eastern boundary.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Some of the more observant of the crowd had glanced suspiciously at this advancing figure, but the majority had not observed him at all until he reined up his horse upon a knoll which overlooked the amphitheatre, and in a stentorian voice announced that he represented the Custos rotulorum of His Majesty’s county of Sussex, that he proclaimed this assembly to be gathered together for an illegal purpose, and that he was commissioned to disperse it by force, if necessary.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The place was entirely land-locked, buried in woods, the trees coming right down to high-water mark, the shores mostly flat, and the hilltops standing round at a distance in a sort of amphitheatre, one here, one there.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

A spot had been chosen for the ring, where a great basin had been hollowed out in the ground, so that all round that natural amphitheatre a crowd of thirty thousand people could see very well what was going on in the centre.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)