HALL • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Hall

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/hɔl/ Listen

noun

Hall n.

1.

A building or room of considerable size and stateliness, used for public purposes; as, Westminster Hall, in London.

2.

(a)

The chief room in a castle or manor house, and in early times the only public room, serving as the place of gathering for the lord's family with the retainers and servants, also for cooking and eating. It was often contrasted with the bower, which was the private or sleeping apartment. "Full sooty was her bower and eke her hall." Hence, as the entrance from outside was directly into the hall:

(b)

A vestibule, entrance room, etc., in the more elaborated buildings of later times. Hence:

(c)

Any corridor or passage in a building.

3.

A name given to many manor houses because the magistrate's court was held in the hall of his mansion; a chief mansion house.

4.

A college in an English university (at Oxford, an unendowed college).

5.

The apartment in which English university students dine in common; hence, the dinner itself; as, hall is at six o'clock.

6.

Cleared passageway in a crowd; formerly an exclamation. (Obs.) "A hall! a hall!"

Synonyms: Entry; court; passage. See Vestibule.

See images of 'Hall'

Etymology of 'Hall'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Hall" Quotes from Famous Books

... is the hall of their island home two years later. This sturdy log-house is no mere extension of the hut we have seen in process of erection, but has been built a mile or less to the west of it, on higher ground ...

— The Admirable Crichton • J. M. Barrie

... he went to his room. He lighted the oil lamp, pulled down the window shade, sat down in a chair to one side of the door to wait. An hour passed with no sound save occasional footfalls in the hall and the drone of the ...

— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts

... the bottom of the hall, full of a whitish vapour on which the torches cast red spots, three Barbarians were thrust forward: a Samnite, ...

— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert

... himself: "The king sits upon his throne, and is honoured by a warrior race, and the warrior exults in the trophies he has won; the step of the huntsman is bold upon the mountain-top, and his name is sung at night round the pine-fires by the lips of the bard; and the bard himself hath honour in the hall. But I, who belong not to the race of kings, and whose limbs can bound not to the rapture of war, nor scale the eyries of the eagle and the haunts of the swift stag; whose hand cannot string the harp, and whose voice is harsh in the song,—I ...

— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... brought him to the brow of the cliff on which stood the forlorn and wind-swept house where John Manning lay. An unkempt and hideous old crone as black as night opened the door for him. He left in the hall his hat and overcoat and a little square box he had brought in his hand; and then he followed the ebony hag up-stairs to Colonel Manning's room. Here at the door she left him, after giving a sharp knock. A weak ...

— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various

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