theme

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See also: thème

English

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Etymology

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From Middle English teme, from Old French teme, tesme (French thème), from Latin thema, from Ancient Greek θέμα (théma), from τίθημι (títhēmi, “I put, place”), reduplicative from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- (“to put, place, do”) (whence also English do). Doublet of thema.

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /θiːm/
  • Audio (US):(file)
  • Hyphenation: theme
  • Rhymes: -iːm (for all senses)
  • Rhymes: -iːmi (for the sense dealing with the Byzantine empire only) (Can we verify(+) this pronunciation?)

Noun

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theme (plural themes)

  1. A subject, now especially of a talk or an artistic piece; a topic.
    • 1828, James Hogg, Mary Burnet:
      "Had not you once a beautiful daughter, named Mary?" said the stranger.
      "It is a heartrending question, man," said Andrew; "but certes, I had once a beloved daughter named Mary."
      "What became of her?" asked the stranger.
      Andrew shook his head, turned round, and began to move away; it was a theme that his heart could not brook.
  2. A recurring idea; a motif.
    1. A concept with multiple instantiations.
      variations on the theme of entrepreneurial resourcefulness
    2. Any of various colors, or color palettes, in which a design is offered; (graphical user interface) any of various skins for an app, affecting the visuals and perhaps other elements such as sound effects.
      switch to a dark theme to conserve battery power
      Synonym: colorway
  3. (dated) An essay written for school.
    • 1917, James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man:
      Father Dolan came in today and pandied me because I was not writing my theme.
    • 1979, Tri-Quarterly, numbers 46-47, page 273:
      […] his themes and exercises were in constant demand for what we called cogging and American students rather grandly called plagiarization.
  4. (music) The main melody of a piece of music, especially one that is the source of variations.
  5. (film, television, video games) A song, or a snippet of a song, that identifies a film, a TV program, a character, etc. by playing at the appropriate time.
  6. (grammar) The stem of a word.
  8. (linguistics) Thematic relation of a noun phrase to a verb.
  10. (linguistics) Theta role in generative grammar and government and binding theory.
  12. (linguistics) Topic, what is generally being talked about.
    Coordinate terms: rheme, comment
  14. A regional unit of organisation in the Byzantine empire.
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Translations

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The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Verb

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theme (third-person singular simple present themes, present participle theming, simple past and past participle themed)

  1. (transitive) To give a theme to.
    We themed the birthday party around superheroes.
  2. (computing, transitive) To apply a theme to; to change the visual appearance and/or layout of (software).

References

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Anagrams

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Middle English

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Etymology 1

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Noun

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theme (plural themes)

  1. Alternative form of teme (“topic”)

Etymology 2

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Pronoun

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theme

  1. Alternative spelling of þeme (“them”)
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