full house

noun

plural full houses

1

: a poker hand containing three of a kind and a pair see poker illustration

2

: a theater, concert hall, etc. that is completely filled with spectators

Nevertheless, Into Great Silence played to a full house for two months at one of the city's hippest independent movie theaters.

—Michael Boudway

Examples of full house in a Sentence

a singer performing before a full house

A hand with three kings and two tens is a full house.

Recent Examples on the Web

The Palladium performance was to a full house, with crowd surfers tumbling frequently into the photo pit. — Steve Appleford, Los Angeles Times, 12 Oct. 2026

The game is at Chase Center in San Francisco, where the team has played in front of a full house — 18,064 fans — for every game of its two-year existence. — Jason Green, Mercury News, 26 Sep. 2026

In place of a liquor shelf (the establishment sells only beer and cider), there’s a turntable and a library of vinyl—this evening’s up-tempo jazz struggled to compete with the din of a full house. — Sheldon Pearce, New Yorker, 25 Sep. 2026

Variance Films began its platform release of The Cycle Of Love by Oscar-winner Orlando von Einsiedel (The White Helmets, Virunga) and executive producer Priyanka Chopra-Jonas at the Angelika in NYC to $17k, with full houses both morning and evening. — Jill Goldsmith, Deadline, 30 Aug. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1701, in the meaning defined at sense 2

Rhymes for full house

• alehouse
• almshouse
• backhouse
• baghouse
• bakehouse
• bathhouse
• bauhaus
• blockhouse
• boathouse
• brewhouse
• bunkhouse
• clubhouse