parlour
thumb|right|260px|The Parlor of the Nuns at San Zaccaria, by [[Francesco Guardi, 1745-50]] A parlour (or parlor) is a reception room or public space. In medieval Christian Europe, the "outer parlour" was the room where the monks or nuns conducted business with those outside the monastery and the "inner parlour" was used for necessary conversation between resident members. In the English-speaking world of the 18th and 19th century, having a parlour room was evidence of social status.
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4 sectionsContents
- Etymology
- History
- See also
- References
thumb|right|260px|The Parlor of the Nuns at San Zaccaria, by [[Francesco Guardi, 1745-50]] A parlour (or parlor) is a reception room or public space. In medieval Christian Europe, the "outer parlour" was the room where the monks or nuns conducted business with those outside the monastery and the "inner parlour" was used for necessary conversation between resident members. In the English-speaking world of the 18th and 19th century, having a parlour room was evidence of social status.
== Etymology == thumb|A Greek Revival architecture|Greek Revival parlour in the [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]] In the early 13th century, parlor originally referred to a room where monks could go to talk, derived from the Old French word parloir or parler ("to speak"), it entered the English language around the turn of the 16th century.