the.com/drawing room
A living room with better manners and worse Wi-Fi.
means A formal room in a house set aside for receiving guests and withdrawing to after meals, before 'living room' took over its job.
from Short for 'withdrawing room,' from the 16th-century verb 'withdraw' — the room guests and family retreated to after dinner, away from the dining table and servants, for private conversation. Over time the 'with' simply wore off in speech, leaving 'drawing room,' a word that has nothing etymologically to do with sketching pictures.
- actual origin
- short for withdrawing room, where ladies withdrew
- the withdrawal
- women left men to port and gossip
- victorian function
- receiving guests, not actually drawing anything
- modern descendant
- the living room, minus the strict etiquette