Bedroom

How to spell bedroom

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce bedroom

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does bedroom mean?

1. nounA room used for sleeping in.

Bedroom in a sentence

• The new flat has one bedroom and a small study.

• She painted the bedroom a soft grey over the weekend.

Where does bedroom come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a transparent compound of two very old native English words: 'bed', from Old English 'bedd', which described a sleeping place or even a garden plot, and 'room', from Old English 'rum', which originally meant simply 'space' or 'extent' rather than an enclosed chamber. Both elements trace back to Germanic roots shared with German 'Bett' and 'Raum'. The combined form 'bedroom' is recorded from around the late 1500s, when it first meant 'space within a bed' before settling into its modern sense of a room set aside for sleeping. The spelling is reassuringly regular: two familiar words joined with no hidden letters, which is why it gives almost no trouble.

How the word is built

• bed (place to sleep)
• room (chamber)