parterre.
1. Flat terrace near a house laid out with flower-beds or decorative planting in a regular formation to be read from above. Types include:parterre à l'anglaise: plat or turfed lawn with a design cut into it; It can also be a large area of grass sparingly cut into to form patterns, sur rounded by a path on the other side of which is a border of flowers;parterre de broderie: embroidered parterre with the patterns formed of trimmed box planting bordering beds of coloured earth, occasionally with bands of turf;parterre d'eau symmetrical arrangement of pools, surrounded by paths, with statuary and fountains; parterre de compartiment: embroidered parterre symmetrical about two axes.

2. Orchestra-stalls of a theatre (see parquet (2)).

Bibliography

Goulty (1991);
Sturgis et al. (1901–2);
Symes (1993)

parterre level space in a garden with ornamental flower-beds. XVII. — F., sb. use of phr. par terre on or along the ground.