theme
/θiːm/
theme noun: a subject, now especially of a talk or an artistic piece; a topic.
Noun
theme (plural themes)
- A subject, now especially of a talk or an artistic piece; a topic.
- "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...1828, James Hogg, Mary Burnet
- "Had not you once a beautiful daughter, named Mary?" said the stranger.
- A concept with multiple instantiations.
- variations on the theme of entrepreneurial resourcefulness
- 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
- Synonyms:
- colorway
- An essay written for school.
- Father Dolan came in today and pandied me because I was not writing my theme.1917, James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
- […] his themes and exercises were in constant demand for what we called cogging and American students rather grandly called plagiarization.1979, Tri-Quarterly, numbers 46-47, page 273
- The main melody of a piece of music, especially one that is the source of variations.
- A song, or a snippet of a song, that identifies a film, a TV program, a character, etc. by playing at the appropriate time.
- An additional puzzle within the crossword, typically involving a set of non-standard clues or answers.
- The stem of a word.
- Thematic relation of a noun phrase to a verb.
- Theta role in generative grammar and government and binding theory.
- Topic, what is generally being talked about.
- A regional unit of organisation in the Byzantine empire.
Verb
theme (third-person singular simple present themes, present participle theming, simple past and past participle themed)
- To give a theme to.
- We themed the birthday party around superheroes.
- To apply a theme to; to change the visual appearance and/or layout of (software).
theme meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
theme in Hindi
- subject of a talk or an artistic piece
- विषय viṣay, प्रसंग prasaṅg
theme in Tamil
- கருப்பொருள், கருத் தோற்றம், தோற்றக் கரு, அடிக்கருத்து, பாடுபொருள், தலைப்பு
theme in Marathi
- theme
- कथावस्तू kathāvastū
theme in Urdu
- subject of a talk or an artistic piece
- مَوضُوع mauzū'
More languagesFewer languages
- theme in Bengali
- বিষয় biśoẏ
- theme in Telugu
- థీమ్, ఇతివృత్తం, థీమింగ్
- theme in Malayalam
- പ്രമേയം pramēyaṁ
- theme in Kannada
- ಕಿರುಬರಹ, ಹುರುಳು, ಬಣ್ಣನೆ
- theme in Punjabi
- ਥੀਮ, ਥੀਮਿੰਗ
- theme in Gujarati
- થીમ, થીમિંગ, થીમની વાત
- theme in Odia
- ଥିମ୍
- theme in Sanskrit
- विषय viṣaya
- theme in Nepali
- विषयवस्तु
- theme in Pashto
- موضوع mawzo'
- theme in Tagalog
- tema
- theme in Arabic
- مَوْضُوع mawḍūʕ
- theme in Malay
- tema
- theme in Indonesian
- tema
- theme in Thai
- กระทู้ grà-túu
- theme in Vietnamese
- chủ đề
- theme in Myanmar
- အကြောင်း a.kraung:
Examples of theme in a sentence
- The theme of this piece constantly migrates between the three voice parts.
- The theme of the prodigal son recurs later in the third act.
- Whenever the villain's theme played in the movie I felt a sudden frisson down my back.
Synonyms of theme
Forms of theme
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | themes |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | themes |
| present participle | theming |
| past participle | themed |
| past | themed |
Origin of theme
From Middle English teme, from Old French teme, tesme (French thème), from Latin thema, from Ancient Greek θέμα (théma), from τίθημι (títhēmi, “to put, place”), reduplicative from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- (“to put, place, do”) (whence also English do). Doublet of thema.
Words formed from theme
Phrases with theme
Questions about theme
- What does theme mean?
- Theme means a subject, now especially of a talk or an artistic piece; a topic.
- What is theme in Hindi?
- Theme in Hindi is विषय (viṣay), प्रसंग (prasaṅg). See Theme meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is theme?
- Theme can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce theme?
- Theme is pronounced /θiːm/.
- What is the plural of theme?
- The plural of theme is themes.
Words near theme in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: theme (page history and authors); theme (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); कथावस्तू (Marathi) (page history and authors); theme (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); പ്രമേയം (Malayalam) (page history and authors); theme (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); theme (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); theme (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); theme (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); theme (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-theme.ogg.
Cite this entry: “theme.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/theme. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.