Hallway

How to spell hallway

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce hallway

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does hallway mean?

1. nounA corridor or passage in a building that connects rooms or leads to an entrance.

Hallway in a sentence

• The children left their muddy boots in the hallway by the front door.

• Fire regulations require the hallway to be kept clear at all times.

Where does hallway come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a compound of two ancient native English words. The first part, 'hall', descends from the Old English 'heall', meaning a large covered space or roofed building, the kind of great room where a lord and his household gathered; that word shares a Germanic root with ideas of covering and concealing. The second part, 'way', comes from the Old English 'weg', meaning a road, path, or route of travel, a word with relatives across the Germanic languages and ultimately tied to the notion of carrying or moving. The two were joined into 'hallway' in the nineteenth century, largely in American usage, to name a passage running through a building. The chief spelling trap is purely native: the doubled 'l' in 'hall' followed immediately by the 'w' of 'way', which can tempt writers into dropping a letter.

How the word is built

• hall (a covered passage or large room)
• way (a path or route)