peanut gallery

noun

1

: the upper balcony of a theater

Carnegie Hall was packed, the balconies rising row on row, full, even to the "peanut gallery."

—Lady Bird Johnson

also : a section of cheap seats in a theater or the group of spectators seated there

I don't even get to sit with Megan since she's real high society and I'm just her … fiancée. I'll be down in the peanut gallery with the low-lifes …

—John Ringo

2

: a group of critics or commentators likened to spectators in the cheap seats of a theater

"Any other objections from the peanut gallery?" Callahan said, fixing us all with his look one by one, defying us to raise a hand.

—Robin Wasserman

The announcement that "The Inheritance of Loss" had won the Booker was met (as these announcements always are) with a few gripes from the peanut gallery in Britain.

—Dwight Garner

Examples of peanut gallery in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

That’s what the online peanut gallery is saying after Tom Brady’s famous ex wife Gisele Bundchen omitted him from her Father’s Day post. — Madeleine Marr, Miami Herald, 23 June 2026

But what, the online peanut gallery wonders, about romance? — Kase Wickman, Vanity Fair, 18 June 2026

And before the perpetually whiny and moronic peanut gallery says that sports teams have special nights all the time, that’s true, but celebrating heritage, or veterans who fought and died for this country is just an eency weency bit different than force-feeding the gay agenda at a ball game! — Tomi Lahren Outkick, FOXNews.com, 17 June 2026

Not all the derision was from the online peanut gallery. — Victor Tangermann, Futurism, 3 June 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1867, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for peanut gallery

• calorie
• galerie
• mallory
• salary