(hôl)
noun- A corridor or passageway in a building.
- A large entrance room or vestibule in a building; a lobby.
a. A building for public gatherings or entertainments.
b. The large room in which such events are held.
- A building used for the meetings, entertainments, or living quarters of a fraternity, sorority, church, or other social or religious organization.
a. A building belonging to a school, college, or university that provides classroom, dormitory, or dining facilities.
b. A large room in such a building.
c. The group of students using such a building: The entire hall stayed up late studying.
d. Chiefly British A meal served in such a building.
- The main house on a landed estate.
a. The castle or house of a medieval monarch or noble.
b. The principal room in such a castle or house, used for dining, entertaining, and sleeping.
Word History: The
halls of academe and
city hall remind us that what we commonly mean by the word
hall, “a passageway, an entrance room,” represents a shrunken version of what
hall once commonly designated. Going back to the Indo-European root
*kel-, “to cover,” the Old English word
heall, ancestor of our
hall, referred to “a large place covered by a roof, whether a royal residence, official building, large private residence, or large room in a residence where the public life of the household is carried on.” These senses and related ones are still in use, as attested by compounds such as
music hall and
study hall. Our common use of the term
hall for a vestibule or a corridor harks back to medieval times when the hall was the main public room of a residence and people lived much less privately than now. As private rooms in houses took on the importance they have today, the hall lost its function.
Hall also had come to mean any large room, and the vestibule was at one time one of the main sitting rooms in a house, but this sort of room has largely disappeared also, and
hall has become the designation for the small vestibule of today as well as for an entrance passage or any passageway.
