Parlour

How to spell parlour

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce parlour

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does parlour mean?

1. nounA room for sitting, relaxing, or receiving guests, or a commercial establishment offering a particular service.

Parlour in a sentence

• The family gathered in the front parlour after dinner.

• She booked an appointment at the new beauty parlour on the high street.

Where does parlour come from?

Language of origin: French

This word travelled into English from the Old French parleor or parlur, a place set aside for talking, which itself grew from the verb parler, meaning 'to speak'. That verb traces back through Late Latin parabolare, 'to talk', and ultimately to the Latin parabola, 'a comparison or discourse', the same root that gives us 'parable' and the modern word 'parley'. The earliest English parlours, recorded from the 1200s, were rooms in monasteries and convents where monks or nuns were permitted to converse with visitors. From there the meaning broadened to the sitting room of a private house where guests were received, and later still to commercial rooms such as a beauty parlour or an ice cream parlour. In British and Canadian spelling the ending keeps the French-flavoured '-our', which is exactly where writers exposed to the American 'parlor' tend to slip.

How the word is built

• parl- (from French parler: to speak)
• -our (noun suffix, British spelling)

British and American spelling

Parlour is the British spelling. American English spells it parlor.