Word.ws English Dictionary

reads the room

reads the room is the third-person singular simple present indicative of read the room.

Meaning of read the room

Verb

read the room (third-person singular simple present reads the room, present participle reading the room, simple past and past participle read the room)

  1. (idiomatic) To understand the emotions and thoughts of the people present, especially to determine the kind of speech or actions that would be appropriate or inappropriate.
    • The ad rubbed some creatives the wrong way. Hugh Grant called it a “destruction of human experience,” while Handmaid’s Tale director Reed Morano told Apple CEO Tim Cook to “read the room” in a post on X.2024 May 9, Emma Roth, quoting Reed Morano, “Apple apologizes for iPad ‘Crush’ ad that ‘missed the mark’”, in The Verge
    Synonyms:
    read the table

Questions about reads the room

What is reads the room the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Reads the room is the third-person singular simple present indicative of read the room.

Words near reads the room in the dictionary

  1. reads someone's lips
  2. reads someone's mind
  3. reads the car
  4. reads the green
  5. reads the mail
  6. reads the room
  7. reads the table
  8. reads through
  9. reads up
  10. reads up on
  11. Readsboro

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: reads the room (page history and authors); read the room (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “reads the room.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/reads_the_room. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.