THEME PARK

noun (Lifestyle and Leisure) An amusement park organized on a particular theme or based on a unifying idea, with each attraction linked in some way to the theme. Etymology: Formed by compounding: a park organized round a theme. History and Usage: The first theme parks were modelled on the American Disneyland in the sixties. During the late sixties and seventies, several such parks were set up outside the US, but it was not until the late seventies and early eighties that the leisure industry took up the idea in a big way in the UK and started to apply it in other contexts. In the mid eighties, for example, the principle was applied to catering outlets in the UK, resulting in the theme pub and theme restaurant, in which each aspect of design and atmosphere was related to a particular unifying theme. Theme parks came in for some criticism from environmentalists in the late eighties, since they take up large tracts of countryside and are felt by some to be an eyesore. Grand Metropolitan's Host Group...is to spend well over ø100m over the next three years on converting its outlets to a wide range of theme pubs. The Times 4 Nov. 1983, p. 17 Local conservationists are even more horrified by a new proposal --including a Disney-style theme park --covering 1,000 acres. Holiday Which? Sept. 1989, p. 176 The long-awaited plan is the product of months of work by Disney 'imagineers', who conjured up Port Disney, a complex of waterfront dining, a marina, a theme park that explores the 'mysteries of the sea', and steel cages under water where tourists can swim with sharks. San Jose Mercury 1 Aug. 1990, section B, p. 8