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

When Gass was first announced as Levi’s president in 2022—spending a year under the tutelage of CEO predecessor Chip Bergh before taking over a year later—many in the peanut gallery pointed to her previous struggles at Kohl’s as reason for skepticism. —Phil Wahba, Fortune, 9 Apr. 2026

Sorry, peanut gallery, but that’s not provable. —Steve Buckley, New York Times, 28 Jan. 2026

The revelation quickly made headlines, and the social-media peanut gallery was sharply derisive. —Emma Sandler, Vogue, 15 Dec. 2025

But neither one of them feels quite so threatening to the top two — and so likely to elicit groans from the peanut gallery — as Hamnet. —Joe Reid, Vulture, 7 Nov. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1867, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for peanut gallery

• calorie
• galerie
• mallory
• salary