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Whispering gallery   /wˈɪspərɪŋ gˈæləri/   Listen
noun
Gallery  n.  (pl. galleries)  
1.
A long and narrow corridor, or place for walking; a connecting passageway, as between one room and another; also, a long hole or passage excavated by a boring or burrowing animal.
2.
A room for the exhibition of works of art; as, a picture gallery; hence, also, a large or important collection of paintings, sculptures, etc.
3.
A long and narrow platform attached to one or more sides of public hall or the interior of a church, and supported by brackets or columns; sometimes intended to be occupied by musicians or spectators, sometimes designed merely to increase the capacity of the hall.
4.
(Naut.) A frame, like a balcony, projecting from the stern or quarter of a ship, and hence called stern gallery or quarter gallery, seldom found in vessels built since 1850.
5.
(Fort.) Any communication which is covered overhead as well as at the sides. When prepared for defense, it is a defensive gallery.
6.
(Mining) A working drift or level.
Whispering gallery. See under Whispering.


adjective
Whispering  adj.  A. & n. from Whisper. v. t.
Whispering gallery, or Whispering dome, one of such a form that sounds produced in certain parts of it are concentrated by reflection from the walls to another part, so that whispers or feeble sounds are audible at a much greater distance than under ordinary circumstances. The dome of the U. S. capitol building is one example.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Whispering gallery" Quotes from Famous Books



... and visibly nothing is changing. And so we go on to—nothing will ever change. It just goes on—in space, in time. If we could realise that round world beyond, then indeed we should go circumspectly.... If the world were like a whispering gallery, what whispers might we not hear now—from India, from Africa, from Germany, warnings from the past, intimations of ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... to the Whispering Gallery, below the windows of the cupola, where visitors are requested to sit down upon a matted seat that they may be shown how a low whisper uttered against the wall can be distinctly heard from the other side of the dome. Hence we reach the Stone Gallery, outside ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... were violent controversies, polemics, and persecutions, until one or other rendering had won its ascendency. But this new world into which we are passing will, for several generations at least, albeit it will be freely inter-communicating and like a whispering gallery for things outspoken, possess no universal ideals, no universal conventions: there will be the literature of the thought and effort of this sort of people, and the literature, thought, and effort ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... to have been built purposely in such a way, that the bishop, or dean, or dignitary, who should preach there, might not be obliged to strain his voice too much. I was now conducted to that part which is called the whispering gallery, which is a circumference of prodigious extent, just below the cupola. Here I was directed to place myself in a part of it directly opposite to my conductor, on the other side of the gallery, so that we had the whole breadth of the church between us, and here ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... middle of the day fly hunting though house flies are still plentiful. The hornets seem to be almost the first insects to succumb to the cold. The black wasps are far hardier. With their passing goes that tiny shrill uproar of the pasture and in the amber quiet of sunset the place becomes a vast whispering gallery. Tiny sounds seem to be entangled here and made audible from very far. The quack of incoming ducks a mile away across the pond sounds as if on the nearer shore. The laughter of children comes as far, ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard


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