hall

1. A corridor or passageway in a building.
2. A large entrance room or vestibule in a building; a lobby.
3. 1. A building for public gatherings or entertainments.
   2. The large room in which such events are held.
4. A building used for the meetings, entertainments, or living quarters of a fraternity, sorority, church, or other social or religious organization.
5. 1. A building belonging to a school, college, or university that provides classroom, dormitory, or dining facilities.
   2. A large room in such a building.
   3. The group of students using such a building: The entire hall stayed up late studying.
   4. Chiefly British. A meal served in such a building.
6. The main house on a landed estate.
7. 1. The castle or house of a medieval monarch or noble.
   2. The principal room in such a castle or house, used for dining, entertaining, and sleeping.

[Middle English halle, large residence, from Old English heall.]

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.

1. The main room of a medieval or post-medieval house that served as the center of family life, usually combining the functions of a kitchen, dining room, living room, and workroom for activities such as spinning, sewing, and candle making; often called a keeping room; also see hall-and-parlor plan.
2. An imposing entrance hall; also called a living hall.
3. A large room for assembly, entertainment, and the like.
4. A small, relatively primitive dwelling having a one-room plan.
5. A manor house.
6. A corridor.

Tutor's tip: What did Saul "haul" (carry or cart) to the small "hall" (chamber or gallery)?

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For other uses, see Hall (disambiguation).

The Marwar Hall at Umaid Bhawan Palace, Jodhpur, India.

A hallway at the Royal York Hotel

Hallway during and after construction in an apartment building in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.

Look up Hall or hall in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Several things are commonly known as Halls or halls. For the development of meaning of the word 'hall', see Hall (concept).

A hall is fundamentally a relatively large space enclosed by a roof and walls. In the Iron Age, a mead hall was such a simple building and was the residence of a lord and his retainers. Later, rooms were partitioned from it, so that today the hall of a house is the space inside the front door from which the rooms are reached.

Thus:

A hallway in a New Jersey Catholic High School

• Deriving from the above, a hall is often the term used to designate a British or Irish country house.
• In later medieval Europe, the main room of a castle or manor house was the great hall.
• Where the hall inside the front door of a house is elongated, it may be called a passage, or hallway. The corresponding space upstairs is a landing.
• In a medieval building, the hall was where the fire was kept. With time, its functions as dormitory, kitchen, parlour and so on were divided off to separate rooms or, in the case of the kitchen, a separate building.

On the same principle:

• Many buildings at colleges and universities are formally titled "_______ Hall", typically being named after the person who endowed it, for example, King's Hall, Cambridge. Others, such as Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, commemorate respected people. Between these in age, Nassau Hall at Princeton University began as the single building of the then college. In medieval origin, these were the halls in which the members of the university lived together during term time. In many cases, some aspect of this community remains.
• At colleges in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, Hall is the dining hall for students, with High Table at one end for fellows. Typically, at "Formal Hall", gowns are worn for dinner during the evening, whereas for "informal Hall" they are not.
• Many Livery Companies (e.g., in the City of London) have a Hall that is their headquarters and meeting place.

Similarly:

• A hall is also a building consisting largely of a principal room, that is rented out for meetings and social affairs. It may be privately or government-owned, such as a function hall owned by one company used for weddings and cotillions (organized and run by the same company on a contractual basis) or a community hall available for rent to anyone.

Firehall (London Ontario) 1923

Following a line of similar development:

• In office buildings and larger buildings (theatres, cinemas etc), the entrance hall is generally known as the foyer (the French for fire-place). The atrium, a name sometimes used in public buildings for the entrance hall, was the central courtyard of a Roman house.

Derived from the residential meanings of the word:

• Hall is also a surname of people, one of whose ancestors lived in a hall as distinct from one such as David M. Cote, whose ancestor will have lived in a cote, a much humbler place shared with the livestock.

Association with salt

From a completely separate derivation:

A Hall is a brand of bitter (beer) made in Germany and sold worldwide, mainly across America.

• In German speaking areas, Hall (with a short a) can also form part of a town name, like Halle, where the name refers to hall, the Celtic word for salt (compare Welsh halen or Breton holen or Cornish holan). In this connection, Hall is the short form of the name of:

1. the medieval German town Schwäbisch Hall, where Hall was its whole name prior to 1933
2. the Austrian town Hall in Tirol near Innsbruck, which used to be called Solbad Hall from 1938 to 1974,
3. Hallstatt in Austria which gave its name to the Celtic Hallstatt culture.

Sir Charles Hallé (originally Karl Halle) lent his name to the Hallé Orchestra. His forbears were probably associated with the German town of Halle. The accent was added to his name in order to assist English-speakers in pronouncing the word.

In the ancient world, the Celts were neighbours of the Greeks whose word for salt was halos (`αλοσ). While European science was developing, some branches of it adopted the Greek language as the source of its terminology. We therefore have words like halogen, halide, halotrichite and halocarbon.

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - hall, vestibule, forhal, entre, korridor, herregård

idioms:

• hall of fame    mindehal
• hall of residence    kollegium

Nederlands (Dutch)
hal, portaal, gang, overloop, zaal, rechts-/ eetzaal, openbaar gebouw, studentenhuis, groot herenhuis, gildenhuis, aankomst-/ vertrekhal

Français (French)
n. - hall, couloir, salle, (Admin) mairie, (Aviat) hall (d'arrivée/de départ), (Univ) résidence universitaire, (Univ) réfectoire, manoir

idioms:

• hall of fame    Panthéon
• hall of residence    résidence universitaire, foyer d'étudiants

Deutsch (German)
n. - Halle, Diele, Korridor, Herrenhaus, Saal, Studentenheim, Speisesaal

idioms:

• hall of fame    Ruhmeshalle
• hall of residence    Studentenwohnheim

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - αίθουσα, δημόσιο κτήριο, τραπεζαρία, χολ, είσοδος, προθάλαμος, αίθουσα συγκεντρώσεων ή συναυλιών

idioms:

• hall of fame    μέγαρο όπου εκτίθενται προτομές και πορτραίτα διασημοτήτων, ομάδα διασημοτήτων
• hall of residence    (σε σχολές) χώρος διαμονής των φοιτητών, φοιτητική εστία

Italiano (Italian)
atrio, ingresso, sala, casa dello studente

idioms:

• entrance hall    atrio
• hall of fame    aula dei personaggi illustri
• hall of residence    casa dello studente

Português (Portuguese)
n. - saguão (m), salão (m)

idioms:

• hall of fame    salão (m) comemorativo em Nova Iorque
• hall of residence    residência (f) universitária

Русский (Russian)
большое помещение, университетская столовая, административное здание, холл, вестибюль, помещичья усадьба

idioms:

• hall of fame    галерея с бюстами выдающихся людей в Нью-Йорке
• hall of residence    студенческое общежитие

Español (Spanish)
n. - vestíbulo, hall, corredor, pasillo, entrada, sala, salón, casa de estudiantes, sala de espera de los aeropuertos

idioms:

• hall of fame    Selección de personas que se han distinguido en algún campo o actividad
• hall of residence    colegio mayor, residencia de estudiantes

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - entré, sal, herrgård, klubb(lokal), (mindre) college, (middag i) collegematsal, (pl.) varieté(teater)

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
门厅, 会堂, 走廊

idioms:

• hall of fame    名人纪念馆
• hall of residence    学校宿舍楼

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 門廳, 會堂, 走廊

idioms:

• hall of fame    名人紀念館
• hall of residence    學校宿舍樓

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 복도, 현관의 넓은 방, 홀, 강당

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 玄関の広間, 玄関, 廊下, 公的な建物, ホール, 事務所, 寮, 特別会館, 集会場, 大邸宅, 大広間, 会堂

idioms:

• hall of fame    栄誉の殿堂, 栄誉殿堂, 殿堂入りした人びと
• hall of residence    寮

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) قصر ملك أو نبيل أو حجرة الجلوس, الرئيسيه فيه, بيت ريفي لصاحب أطيان, مبنى فخم لأغراض عامه, مبنى في جامعه لغرض معين, كليه أو جزء من كليه في بعض الجامعات, قاعه الطعام العامه في اللغه الإنجليزيه, ردهه, رواق, قاعه كبيرة للإجتماعات‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮אולם, פרוזדור, חדר-אוכל, בית, מעון, בניין, בית-אחוזה גדול (בריטניה), בית ציבורי גדול‬

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