What is the difference between a salon, parlor, drawing room, sitting room, boudoir?

[madsircool]

I couldn’t find the thread from the last week or two but it seems there are many opinions; from Stephen Kings It:

“The sound of the piano came from what his father called the living room and what his mother called the parlor.”

Author and characters from Maine.

[Beckdawrek]

There’s was a zombie in the boudoir!

[SanVito]

@Hilarity_N.Suze

I wonder if you could tell what kind of room you were in by what you were sitting on. I.e. davenport, settee, couch, sofa, divan. chaise longue (that’s be the boudoir I’ll bet). I think the settee is in the parlor, the davenport is in the salon, the sofa’s in the sitting room, and the couch is in the drawing room, but that’s just a guess.

Now, here’s can of worms. I use Sofa/Settee pretty interchangeably, but lean towards sofa. Is that a sign of my being a middle-class Brit? Are big squashy long chairs class conscious? I suspect they might be.

Couch to me seems quite the American word, but a Brit will be along in a moment to tell me that’s precisely what they say in Welsh mining towns or some such.

[Ludovic]

@SanVito

I use Sofa/Settee pretty interchangeably, but lean towards sofa. Is that a sign of my being a middle-class Brit? Are big squashy long chairs class conscious? I suspect they might be.

Couch to me seems quite the American word, but a Brit will be along in a moment to tell me that’s precisely what they say in Welsh mining towns or some such.

I was once watching CSPAN in the 90s when someone came on talking about teaching African American children and said that it’s easier to teach when you choose vocabulary your audience would be more likely to understand, and one of the examples was “in one group of students you’d say ‘sofa’, the other ‘couch’”, and for the life of my I can’t tell which item was supposedly more in use by the white or black students! I can’t imagine anyone in America not knowing both terms, if not using both. I tend to use “couch” more although I think I say sofa from time to time.

[Peter_Morris]

@Sattua

Cursory investigation at dictionary.com indicates:

A sitting room is an informal place for the family to spend their time.
A drawing room is a formal place to meet visitors.
A salo(o)n is a very large room capable of handling public exhibitions, balls, etc.
A parlo(u)r is a small private room where people can have some privacy.

And the Grand Hall is where his lordship holds his balls and dances.

[Beckdawrek]

My mother always called the sofa the divan, maybe shortened from davenport, IDK. And the living room was always the Front room. She was wild!

[DSYoungEsq]

@Beckdawrek

My mother always called the sofa the divan, maybe shortened from davenport, IDK. And the living room was always the Front room. She was wild!

No, divan is not a shortened form of davenport. It’s a word from Persian, via Turkish, then French/Italian. The original word is dīwān, meaning “bench”, usually created by raising a portion of the floor next to the wall.

[DrCube]

@Diceman

It seems to me that the modern equivalents to sitting room, drawing room, and parlor (in broad strokes) would be family room, living room, and den. The living room is usually more formal than the family room. If you have company over, you take them to the living room; if you’re going to sit on the couch and watch TV while eating last night’s cold pizza, you’re gonna do it in the family room. A den, like a parlor, usually comes with the expectation of a small degree of privacy.

In my family it was the opposite. The family room was for family gatherings, and conversation. Not formal exactly, but more formal than the living room, where it wouldn’t be uncommon to eat cereal in your underwear and watch Three Stooges on TV. Our family room had no TV.

@Ludovic

I was once watching CSPAN in the 90s when someone came on talking about teaching African American children and said that it’s easier to teach when you choose vocabulary your audience would be more likely to understand, and one of the examples was “in one group of students you’d say ‘sofa’, the other ‘couch’”, and for the life of my I can’t tell which item was supposedly more in use by the white or black students! I can’t imagine anyone in America not knowing both terms, if not using both. I tend to use “couch” more although I think I say sofa from time to time.

To this Midwesterner, “couch” is the longer, three cushion variety, “sofa” is the shorter, two cushion version, though I’d recognize them as roughly synonymous when other people use the terms. I use “couch” as the more generic term to refer to both, or even anything bearing a resemblance, like a sectional or chaise.

@Hilarity_N.Suze

I wonder if you could tell what kind of room you were in by what you were sitting on. I.e. davenport, settee, couch, sofa, divan. chaise longue (that’s be the boudoir I’ll bet). I think the settee is in the parlor, the davenport is in the salon, the sofa’s in the sitting room, and the couch is in the drawing room, but that’s just a guess.

And the Chesterfield is in the den!

[Kron]

@DrCube

In my family it was the opposite. The family room was for family gatherings, and conversation. Not formal exactly, but more formal than the living room, where it wouldn’t be uncommon to eat cereal in your underwear and watch Three Stooges on TV. Our family room had no TV.

To this Midwesterner, “couch” is the longer, three cushion variety, “sofa” is the shorter, two cushion version, though I’d recognize them as roughly synonymous when other people use the terms. I use “couch” as the more generic term to refer to both, or even anything bearing a resemblance, like a sectional or chaise.

And the Chesterfield is in the den!

Couch is three-cushion, loveseat is two-cushion. I don’t think I use “sofa” very often at all in normal speech, though I wouldn’t look askance and anyone that did, in reference to either piece of furniture.

[jtur88]

It might be worth mentioning “saloon”, as distinct from “salon”. In American usage, it has come to simply mean a place where drunk cowboys shoot each other and glass objects. But originally, it meant a quiet place attached to a drinking establishment, or any other such peaceful place for the general public, such as on a ship. Nowadays, in British usage, it is synonymous with “sedan” to distinguish higher priced automobiles. I once owned a Jaguar MK Saloon.