spectator
/spɛkˈteɪtə
/noun
A person who watches at a show, game, or other event: around fifteen thousand spectators came to watch the thrills and spills...
- These have every appearance of being intended for the use of spectators watching sporting events.
- She was a spectator, a spectator watching her life break apart before her eyes.
- Most of the spectators were gathered watching his game, and I was glad that they could not see the dilemma I was in.
Synonyms
onlooker, watcher, looker-on, fly on the wall, viewer, observer, witness, eyewitness, bystander, non-participant, sightseer;
commentator, reporter, monitor, blogger
informal rubberneck
literary beholder
Derivatives
spectatorial
- We must question, however, the actual usefulness of such a characterization of spectatorial submission to the visual image of film.
- The dancers no longer performed for the spectatorial look but rather, engaged with the crowd in immediate exchange.
- He takes a protective but also frankly spectatorial interest in the lives of his tenants, following their dramas with the fascination of a soap opera addict.
spectatorship
- Does ‘our culture of spectatorship neutralise the moral force of photographs of atrocities’?
- This form of spectatorship contrasts sharply with the interactive performances found in rural villages where most of these maskers normally appear.
- Within the context of this film, which wilfully denies many of the conventional pleasures of cinema spectatorship, such moments are genuinely transcendent.
Origin
Late 16th century: from French spectateur or Latin spectator, from spectare 'gaze at, observe' (see spectacle).