Drawing Room, Parlor, Living Room and other room names

In my house as a child, we didn't have a "drawing room," but I read about them in novels and heard the term used in movies. I wanted one.

A drawing room is a formal living room in a house, traditionally used for entertaining guests. Today, the term is less common in the U.S. (we’d just say "living room" and some old timers might say "sitting room"), but drawing room is still sometimes used in Britain, in historical fiction, and period dramas.

But who is drawing in these rooms?

The term comes from the 17th-century shortening of withdrawing room — a space where people could “withdraw” after dinner for conversation, tea, or other socializing, away from the more functional rooms like the dining room or kitchen.

In historic English and upper-class homes, the drawing room was usually elegantly furnished and he social hub for polite company. There was no eating of full meals there, but it was often positioned near the dining room for ease of transition after dinner, and there might be drinks and finger foods.

What are the differences between a drawing room, parlor, and living room, since they’re related but not identical?

Parlor, from the French parler (to speak), was originally a reception room for guests or clergy. In Victorian times, it was also a place for family events like weddings or funerals. It could be formal or semi-formal, depending on the household. Less exclusive than a drawing room, it might be where the family actually sat and talked.

As I said earlier, in my house we had a dining room and a living room, a term popularized in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as homes became less formal. It was a comfortable, everyday space for the family. Sometimes, we lounged there. Sometimes I napped or slept there after dozing off watching TV. It was also as formal as we could be with guests.

A drawing room says, “Let’s impress the guests.” A parlor says, “Let’s sit and talk.” The living room says, “Let’s relax and be ourselves.”

Back to Square One

Have you heard the phrase "back to square one" and wondered what and where is "square one?" It means to go back to the starting place. It may have once been a literal place, but now it is a metaphor for a restart. The phrase implies some perseverance and starting over rather than giving up. 

I assumed it had to do with some board game, and that may be correct. One origin story is that “square one” is the starting point of the game Snakes and Ladders. This 19th-century British board game came from an earlier ancient Hindu game called Moksha Patamu. Americans will know it as Chutes and Ladders, the still-popular children's game version created by Milton Bradley in 1943. They got rid of the scary snake and made chutes/slides.

 
The American game, with its literal "square 1"

In all three versions of the game, players roll dice and move across squares on the board, climbing ladders along the way. But if you land on a snake or a chute, you fall back to where you started - on square one. 

The second origin story I found seems less likely to have become widespread in usage. It comes from British football (soccer). When the earliest live radio broadcast of a British football game occurred in 1927, to help listeners picture the location of the ball during play, a grid diagram of the football pitch (soccer field) was printed in a newspaper. This might be similar to a diagram a coach would use to designate zones for players. Radio commentators referenced those grid numbers during the broadcast, and “square one” was the rear left quadrant of the defender’s side of the field. That’s where the goalie would initiate a new play after an attack failed. Therefore, the ball and the players were “back at square one.” 

How French Entered English After 1066

 

A recent trip to England, when I visited the present-day town of Battle, East Sussex, where the Battle of Hastings occurred, inspired me to do a series of posts about how the English language changed after that battle.

William the Conqueror of Normandy, France, invaded British soil, and these French-speaking Normans eventually defeated the Old English-speaking Saxons led by King Harold II at the Battle of Hastings on October 14, 1066. Language experts often cite this as the start of a period of time having a more pronounced effect on the development of the English language than any other event in history. 

Some changes occurred very quickly and others took longer to be accepted, but in the course of a few centuries, English went from being a strictly Germanic language to one infused with a large Latinate vocabulary, which came via French.

You can read all my posts about French into English, including this recent series covering words about legal topics, warfare, food, religion, government, literature, and even things of pleasure.

Ecclesiastical Words That Come from French

On 28 September 1066, William the Conqueror of Normandy arrived on British soil. He defeated the British in the Battle of Hastings on October 14, and on Christmas Day, he was crowned King of England in Westminster Abby. In the years and centuries that followed, English took on many French words to add to its Anglo-Saxon and Germanic base. This is our sixth post about how English changed after that defeat.

Canterbury Cathedral goes back to 597AD when St Augustine, sent by Pope Gregory
 the Great as a missionary, established his seat (or 'Cathedra') in Canterbury.
 In 1170 Archbishop Thomas Becket was murdered in the Cathedral and ever since,
the Cathedral has attracted thousands of pilgrims, as told famously
 in Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

For example, when Chaucer wrote in the opening of lines of The Canterbury Tales that when April's sweet showers pierce the drought of March and "Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages," it was 300 years after the Norman Invasion. By then, the English word pilgrim was in widespread use. The French word pelegrin — meaning "foreign" — in turn came from a Latin root for "abroad." Pilgrim and pilgrimage have the same root as the English word peregrinate, which means to travel, especially on foot.

Many of those words that entered English were ecclesiastical words from religion and the church. The word religion itself first appeared in English to mean "life under monastic vows." The Old French word religion derived from a Latin word meaning "obligation, bond, reverence."

A life under monastic vows came with all sorts of practices, like saying one's prayers, derived from the Old French verb preier "to ask earnestly." A preiere was something "obtained by entreaty" and of uncertain outcome. This sense of uncertainty is reflected in English words sharing the same root as prayer, including precarious, deprecate, postulate, and expostulate.

The word for preach, however, came from an Old French root meaning not to ask but "to proclaim." The French verb prechier came from the Latin praedicare, to "pre + declare."

The holiness of saint (from Old French seint) can be found in the word's Latin root sanctus, meaning "holy." The English word sanctuary is from Old French sanctuaire, which originally meant a "church or other sacred place where a fugitive was immune by the law of the medieval church from arrest." Related English words include sanctify, sanctity, and sanctimonious.

Merci is a French word still in use, today as the equivalent of the English "thank you" — and in Old French it meant "pity" — just as we still use it in the phrase "have mercy on me." We also use this root when we speak of merciless killings and merciful people.

More words from French

French Pleasure After the Norman Conquest

 

William

The Battle of Hastings was fought on 14 October 1066 between the Norman-French army of William, Duke of Normandy, and an English army under the Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godwinson. Harold's defeat began the Norman Conquest of England. It took place approximately 7 mi (11 km) northwest of Hastings, close to the present-day town of Battle, East Sussex, and was a decisive Norman victory. It had a pronounced effect on the development of the English language, changing English from a strictly Germanic language to one infused with a large Latinate vocabulary, which came via French.

This fifth post in this series looks at words surrounding pleasure and pastime that come to us by way of French. Let's start with the word pleasure itself, from Old French plaisir, "to please." 

Delight is derived from Old French delitier, "to charm, allure, please." Later, in English, the verb took on the function of a noun as well. It's the basis for the word "delicate" as well as a bounty of food-related words, including the delicacy you might purchase at a deli and find to be delectable, or delicious.

Delight is often associated with joy, another word entering Middle English from Old French. The French joie was based on the Latin verb "to rejoice." 

If someone jumps up and down with joy and then starts to dance, they might be described with another English word that came in through French. The Old French verb is dancer, and it came from a Germanic root that meant "to stretch."

To act at leisure or to dally — these are also words we get from the French. Old French leisir was based on Latin licere, "be allowed" — and is the basis for the word license as well. The Old French word dalier meant "to chat" and was a word used commonly in Anglo-Norman in the years just after the invasion, when a sort of bilingual society existed — with nobles chatting in French and common folk in English. The word dalliance actually started out in English meaning "conversation" but has since come to take on the meaning of "amorous flirtation."

Sport also derives from French. In Middle English, sport meant broadly "hobby" or "entertainment"; it came from the French word disport. 

The English music is from Old French musique via Latin from Greek for the "art of the Muses." The root is also the basis for amuse, bemuse, mosaic, and museum.

More words from French