Par"lor (?), n. [OE. parlour,
parlur, F. parloir, LL. parlatorium. See
Parley.] [Written also parlour.] A room for
business or social conversation, for the reception of guests,
etc. Specifically: (a) 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. Piers Plowman. (b) 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.
(c) Commonly, in the United States, a drawing-
room, or the room where visitors are received and
entertained.
☞ "In England people who have a drawing-room no longer call it
a parlor, as they called it of old and till recently."
Fitzed. Hall.
Parlor car. See Palace car, under
Car.