parlor

noun

1. 1

   The living room of a house, or a room for entertaining guests; a room for talking; a sitting-room or drawing room.

   So, after a spell, he decided to make the best of it and shoved us into the front parlor. 'Twas a dismal sort of place, with hair wreaths, and wax fruit, and tin lambrekins, and land knows what all.

2. 2

   archaicThe apartment in a monastery or nunnery where the residents are permitted to meet and converse with each other or with visitors from the outside.

3. 3

   datedA comfortable room in a public house.

   Immediately at hand was a small, mean public-house - one of those dingy establishments that seem to express, by their morbid and retiring appearance, a certain anxiety to escape the eye of the police - and into the parlour of this hostel Quin promptly led the way.

   There had been a surprise party and some had entered his hotel parlour to get drink; before he was aware of it the accordion was being played in the room.

4. 4

   A covered open-air patio.

5. 5

   A shop or other business selling goods or services specified by context.

   tattoo parlor pizza parlor ice cream parlor

6. 6

   A shed used for milking cattle; a milking parlor.

7. 7

   Variant of beauty parlorA shop or other business selling goods or services specified by context. Ellipsis of beauty parlor.

adjective

1. 1

   Used in or appropriate for a parlor.

   Parlor painting.

2. 2

   figurativeAdvocating something in a secluded place without actual involvement or action.

   Parlor socialism.

Forms

plural

parlors