Other forms: theaters
A theater is the building where actors perform plays on a stage. Go to the theater, a Broadway theater, the theater district.
This is the American spelling; British English writes theatre, and the -re spelling is kept even in America for some named venues, which produces both on the same street. A theater is also the branch of art as a whole. Note operating theater, which is the British hospital term; and that the Greek behind it means a place for viewing.
1nountheaterThe building where plays are performed.
“We went to the theater to see a play about the war.”
2nounartThe art of drama as a whole.
“She has worked in theater all her life, as both an actor and a director.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
theater is a performance venue.
Also accepted in games: theatre
Greek theatron means a place for viewing, from theasthai, to watch. Theory and theatre come from the same watching, and the American -er spelling was Noah Webster's reform.
Proto-Indo-European
*dʰeyh₂-
Middle English
theater
English, today
theater
Built from
From Middle English theater. Middle English theater, theatre, from Old French theatre, from Latin theātrum, from Ancient Greek θέᾱτρον (“a place for viewing”), from θεᾰ́ομαι (“to see", "to watch", "to observe”). a doublet of tiatr.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA