parloir

From French parloir (“parlor”). Doublet of parlor.

parloir (plural parloirs)

1. A room set aside for visitors in a monastery or convent, where they can talk to residents. [from 18th c.]
   • 1790, Helen Maria Williams, Letters Written in France, Broadview Press, published 2002, page 111:

     The first to which we went was a convent of Benedictine Nuns. When we had entered the gates we rang a bell, and a servant appeared, and desired us to go up stairs to the parloir.

• pro-rail

From parl(er) +‎ -oir.

• IPA^(key): /paʁ.lwaʁ/

• Audio (France (Somain)):

  (file)

parloir m (plural parloirs)

1. parlour (of house, covent)
2. visitors' room (of hospital, school); visiting room (of prison)
   • 1857, Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary […]‎^[1], Paris: Michel Lévy Frères:

     Était-ce son temps de collège, où il restait enfermé entre ces hauts murs, seul au milieu de ses camarades plus riches ou plus forts que lui dans leurs classes, qu'il faisait rire par son accent, qui se moquaient de ses habits, et dont les mères venaient au parloir avec des pâtisseries dans leur manchon?

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

3. greenroom (in theatre etc.)

• parloir aux bourgeois

• “parloir”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012