- Drawing room - Reception room - Sitting room - A room for business or social conversation, for the
reception of guests, etc. - The apartment in a monastery or nunnery where the inmates
are permitted to meet and converse with each other, or with visitors
and friends from without. - In large private houses, a sitting room for the family and
for familiar guests, -- a room for less formal uses than the
drawing-room. Esp., in modern times, the dining room of a house having
few apartments, as a London house, where the dining parlor is usually
on the ground floor. - Commonly, in the United States, a drawing-room, or the room
where visitors are received and entertained.
- A room appropriated for the reception of company; a
room to which company withdraws from the dining room. - The company assembled in such a room; also, a
reception of company in it; as, to hold a drawing-room.
- A house for the reception of strangers. - In the Middle Ages, a room in a monastery for the
reception and entertainment of strangers and pilgrims, and for the
relief of paupers. [Called also Xenodocheion.]