A dais is a raised platform at the front of a room where important speakers, guests, or performers stand or sit so everyone can see them. The word rhymes with “face.”

When a principal addresses an assembly from a stage at the front of the auditorium, she's standing on a dais. At a medieval banquet, the king and queen would sit at a table on a dais while everyone else sat at lower tables on the regular floor. In a courtroom, the judge sits behind a desk on a dais, positioned higher than everyone else in the room.

The dais serves a practical purpose: it makes the person on it visible to a large group. But it also carries symbolic weight. Being elevated on a dais signals authority, importance, or honor. When award winners walk onto a dais to receive their prizes, the platform itself communicates that something significant is happening.

You'll find a dais in lecture halls, ballrooms where people give speeches at weddings, conference centers, and theaters. A stage is similar to a dais, though stages are typically larger and used mainly for performances, while a dais might just be a small raised platform with a podium.