FOURTH WALL Definition & Meaning

fourth wall

[fawrth wawl]

Phonetic (Standard)IPA

noun

the imaginary, invisible wall, as across the front of a stage, that separates the world constructed by a play, movie, television show, video game, or literary work from the actual world inhabited by the audience.

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51�Թ� History and Origins

Origin of fourth wall¹

First recorded in 1800–10

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Idioms and Phrases

Idioms

break the fourth wall, to violate the conventional separation between the world of a play, movie, television show, video game, or literary work and the world inhabited by the viewer.
The actor’s periodic asides to the audience break the fourth wall and elicit much-needed laughs.

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

The pivot here is dramatic, a bit of formal experimentation as Fraser shatters the fourth wall, luring us from our comfort zone.

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Authorial interludes can feel like interruptions, but by breaking the fourth wall, Reva forces us to pay attention to the ongoing devastation behind the narrative while unpacking the compromises of storytelling.

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I want to focus on this fourth wall–breaking moment, when she comes close to saying: Do you understand that you are rewarding one person, and that is the lawless Donald J. Trump?

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As a child, she got hooked after seeing the mischievous blue alien crash the fourth wall and disrupt scenes from classic Disney films such as “The Lion King” and “Aladdin” in the trailers for the original 2002 animated movie, “Lilo & Stitch.”

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Trump narrated himself breaking the fourth wall by going out into the audience and commenting on the attractiveness of women in the front rows and promised audiences they wouldn’t forget him while “SNL” goes on summer hiatus.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

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