drawing room

See also: drawing-room and drawingroom

English edit

Alternative forms edit

drawing-room, drawingroom

Etymology 1 edit

Shortening of withdrawing room.

Noun edit

drawing room (plural drawing rooms)

(British, somewhat dated) Any room where visitors may be entertained; now, the living room.
- 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter X, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
  It was a joy to snatch some brief respite, and find himself in the rectory drawing–room.
(British) A multifunctional room that can be used for any purpose in a palace or castle.
(British) A levée where ladies are presented at court or to society.
- 1870 April–September, Charles Dickens, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1870, →OCLC:
  The concluding ceremony came off at twelve o’clock on the day of departure; when Miss Twinkleton, supported by Mrs. Tisher, held a drawing-room in her own apartment (the globes already covered with brown Holland), where glasses of white-wine and plates of cut pound-cake were discovered on the table.
- 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 2, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC:
  [A] great deal of conversation had taken place about the drawing-room, and whether or not young ladies wore powder as well as hoops when presented, and whether she was to have that honour: to the Lord Mayor's ball she knew she was to go.
- 1860, Ellen Wood, East Lynne, Penguin, published 2005, page 11:
  ‘Mrs Vane of Castle Marling is staying with us; she came up to present my child at the last Drawing-room but I think I heard something about her dining out to-day.’
(US) A private room on a railroad sleeping car.