Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. An ornamental flower garden having the beds and paths arranged to form a pattern.
- n. See parquet circle.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. 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.
- n. 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.
Wiktionary
- n. A flowerbed, particularly an elevated one.
- n. A garden with paths between such flowerbeds.
- n. A theater balcony, especially in an opera house; above the box seats, but definitely below family circle.
- n. An apartment balcony.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. An ornamental and diversified arrangement of beds or plots, in which flowers are cultivated, with intervening spaces of gravel or turf for walking on.
- n. The pit of a theater; the parquet.
WordNet 3.0
- n. an ornamental flower garden; beds and paths are arranged to form a pattern
- n. seating at the rear of the main floor (beneath the balconies)
Etymologies
- French, from Old French, ornamental garden, from par terre, on the ground : par, over, on; see paramount + terre, ground (from Old French, from Latin terra, earth; see ters- in Indo-European roots).
Examples
“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)
“But the word parterre, even the idea of a parterre, fit.”
“My dear Fleda! if my eyes cannot rest upon that development of elegance, the parterre is become a wilderness to me!”
“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”
“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.”
“Smokey déguisé en brin d'herbe ou en fleur de parterre .....”
“(Smokey disguised as a blade of grass) ou en fleur de parterre .....”
“Richardson & Wrench The property has dry-stone walls, a vegetable garden, citrus orchard and parterre, or ornamental garden shown with peony trees and roses.”
“Smokey déguisé en brin d'herbe ou en fleur de parterre.....”
“Here, the meticulous order of the knot garden can be seen giving way to the more colourful and eclectic parterre, the decorative and the practical – even the political – going hand in hand.”
Lists
‘parterre’ hasn't been added to any lists yet.
chained_bear "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
jaime_d from Thoreau's A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers Jul 19, 2009