Marquee

How to spell marquee

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce marquee

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does marquee mean?

1. nounA large tent erected for an outdoor event such as a wedding, fair, or garden party.
2. nounA roofed projection over the entrance of a cinema or theatre, often bearing illuminated signs announcing the programme.
3. adjectiveLeading or most prominent, as in a top-billed name or feature.

Marquee in a sentence

• noun

  The caterers set up a white marquee on the lawn for the reception.

• noun

  The film's title glowed in bright letters across the cinema marquee.

• adjective

  The club paid a fortune to sign its new marquee player.

• noun

  Heavy rain meant the entire wedding moved inside the marquee.

• noun

  Crowds gathered under the theatre marquee waiting for the doors to open.

• adjective

  The conference promised a marquee speaker to draw a bigger audience.

Where does marquee come from?

Language of origin: French

The word comes from the French marquise, the feminine form of marquis, which named a noblewoman of high rank but also came to describe a large, grand tent or canopy of the sort a marquise might sit under. English borrowed marquise in the 1600s and 1700s, and English speakers misread the final '-se' as a plural ending, assuming the word was 'marquees'. From that mistaken plural they invented a brand-new singular, 'marquee', which is why the modern spelling drifted away from the French original. This kind of back-formation, where a wrongly-assumed plural breeds a false singular, is the same process that gave English the word 'pea' from the older 'pease'. The original sense of a large tent survives in British use, while American English later applied it to the projecting canopy over a theatre or cinema entrance, complete with the illuminated lettering that announced the show, and from there to the figurative sense of anything top-billed or headline-worthy.

How the word is built

• marqu- (from French marquise, a marchioness or her grand canopy)
• -ee (re-spelt English ending)