Parlour

[pahr-ler] /ˈpɑr lər/

noun, adjective, Chiefly British.
1.
.
[pahr-ler] /ˈpɑr lər/
noun
1.
Older Use. a room for the reception and entertainment of visitors to one’s home; living room.
2.
a room, apartment, or building serving as a place of business for certain businesses or professions:
funeral parlor; beauty parlor.
3.
a somewhat private room in a hotel, club, or the like for relaxation, conversation, etc.; lounge.
4.
Also called locutorium. a room in a monastery or the like where the inhabitants may converse with visitors or with each other.
adjective
5.
advocating something, as a political view or doctrine, at a safe remove from actual involvement in or commitment to action:
parlor leftism; parlor pink.
/ˈpɑːlə/
noun
1.
(old-fashioned) a living room, esp one kept tidy for the reception of visitors
2.
a reception room in a priest’s house, convent, etc
3.
a small room for guests away from the public rooms in an inn, club, etc
4.
(mainly US & Canadian, NZ) a room or shop equipped as a place of business: a billiard parlor
5.
(Caribbean) a small shop, esp one selling cakes and nonalcoholic drinks
6.
Also called milking parlour. a building equipped for the milking of cows

chiefly British English spelling of parlor (q.v.).
n.

c.1200, parlur, “window through which confessions were made,” also “apartment in a monastery for conversations with outside persons;” from Old French parleor “courtroom, judgment hall, auditorium” (12c., Modern French parloir), from parler “to speak” (see parley (n.)).

Sense of “sitting room for private conversation” is late 14c.; that of “show room for a business” (e.g. ice cream parlor) first recorded 1884. As an adjective, “advocating radical views from a position of comfort,” 1910.

Related Terms

massage parlor, rap club, rub parlor

(from the Fr. parler, “to speak”) denotes an “audience chamber,” but that is not the import of the Hebrew word so rendered. It corresponds to what the Turks call a kiosk, as in Judg. 3:20 (the “summer parlour”), or as in the margin of the Revised Version (“the upper chamber of cooling”), a small room built on the roof of the house, with open windows to catch the breeze, and having a door communicating with the outside by which persons seeking an audience may be admitted. While Eglon was resting in such a parlour, Ehud, under pretence of having a message from God to him, was admitted into his presence, and murderously plunged his dagger into his body (21, 22). The “inner parlours” in 1 Chr. 28:11 were the small rooms or chambers which Solomon built all round two sides and one end of the temple (1 Kings 6:5), “side chambers;” or they may have been, as some think, the porch and the holy place. In 1 Sam. 9:22 the Revised Version reads “guest chamber,” a chamber at the high place specially used for sacrificial feasts.