Parlour

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A Greek Revival Parlor in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Parlour (or parlor), from the French word parloir, from parler ("to speak"), denotes an "audience chamber". 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.

In certain dialects, parlors are common names for certain types of food-serving stores and restaurants (i.e. "ice cream parlor" and "pizza parlor").^{[verification needed]} The dialect-specific usage of this term (i.e. as opposed to "ice cream shop" or "pizzeria", respectively) is similar (for instance) to the difference between calling soda "soda" vs. "soda pop".^{[verification needed]}

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.

In medieval Christian usage, the parlour was the room in a monastery or convent where the monks or nuns could receive a visitor. Because the order required silence much of the day from those living in it, that they could speak with these visitors was a distinguishing trait from other rooms.

In modern use, the parlour is a formal sitting room in a large house or mansion. In the late nineteenth century, was a formal room to be used only on Sundays or special occasions, and locked during the week. The parlour contained a family's best furnishings, works of art and other display items. The body of a recently deceased member of the household would be laid out in the parlour while funeral preparations were made. In more modest homes, the parlour has largely been replaced by the living room as a result of a twentieth-century effort by architects and builders to strip the parlour of its burial and mourning associations.