parlor

• parlour (British)

Inherited from Middle English parlour, from Old French parleor, parloir, parleoir, from the verb parler (“to speak”); compare Medieval Latin parlātōrium. Doublet of parloir.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈpɑːlə/
• (General American) enPR: pärʹlər, IPA^(key): /ˈpɑɹlɚ/
• (Nigeria) IPA^(key): /ˈpaːlɔː/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɑː(ɹ)lə(ɹ)

parlor (plural parlors)

1. (dated outside Mid-Atlantic US) The living room of a house, or a room for entertaining guests; a room for talking; a sitting-room or drawing room.

   Synonyms: living room, sitting room, drawing room, (UK) lounge

   • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter XII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:

     So, after a spell, he decided to make the best of it and shoved us into the front parlor. 'Twas a dismal sort of place, with hair wreaths, and wax fruit, and tin lambrekins, and land knows what all.

2. (archaic) The apartment in a monastery or nunnery where the residents are permitted to meet and converse with each other or with visitors from the outside.
3. (archaic) A comfortable room in a public house.
4. (chiefly Southern US) A covered open-air patio.
5. A shop or other business selling goods or services specified by context.

   tattoo parlor   pizza parlor   ice cream parlor

   1. (Philippines) Ellipsis of beauty parlor.
6. A shed used for milking cattle; a milking parlor.

• room

• “parlor”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “parlor”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “parlor”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

Short for English beauty parlor.

• Hyphenation: par‧lor

parlor

1. a beauty parlor