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Glite Dictionary
first balcony

first balcony

3.9
A raised seating section above the main floor that sticks out from the wall in a theater
  • noun
  • US
translation icon : primer balcón
  • She felt the excitement when she took her seat in the first balcony of the theater.

Examples

  • Because the theater needed paying attendance, it continued the practice of admitting the penny customers to the standing room in front of the stage and the higher class (and paying) customers on the first balcony.

    Academic text (2014)

  • The best view of the stage can be found from the first balcony seats.

  • During the performance, the audience erupted in applause from the first balcony.

Synonyms

mezzanine
vsfirst balcony
4 7.4

A low balcony in a theatre above the main floor that gives a good view of the stage

is the projecting first tier of seats above the orchestra
dress circle
vsfirst balcony
  • UK
1 5.4

A curved section of seats above the main floor with a good view of the stage

is the simple projecting tier rather than a specially curved seating section

How High

first balcony
  • US
3.9
stall
  • UK
10 4.8

Surface Forms

first balcony singular
first balconies plural

Morphology

first + balcony

The meaning is directly compositional: 'first' denotes ordinal position and 'balcony' denotes a raised seating platform, so together they naturally describe the lowest/first tier of balcony seats. This is a common descriptive pattern in theatre vocabulary and cross-linguistically recurring, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily infer the meaning.

Etymology

First balcony comes from theatre seating: the first, or lowest, balcony is the row of seats just above the main floor, which is often called the 'orchestra'. So first balcony today simply means that first raised level of seats above the main floor.