Par·lor n. [Written also parlour.]
1. A room for business or social conversation, for the reception of guests, etc. Specifically: (a) The apartment in a monastery or nunnery where the inmates are permitted to meet and converse with each other, or with visitors and friends from without. --Piers Plowman. (b) In large private houses, a sitting room for the family and for familiar guests, -- a room for less formal uses than the drawing-room. Esp., in modern times, the dining room of a house having few apartments, as a London house, where the dining parlor is usually on the ground floor. (c) Commonly, in the United States, a drawing-room, or the room where visitors are received and entertained; a room in a private house where people can sit and talk and relax, not usually the same as the dining room.
Note: ☞ “In England people who have a drawing-room no longer call it a parlor, as they called it of old and till recently.”
Parlor car. See Palace car, under Car.
◄ ►
Car n.
1. A small vehicle moved on wheels; usually, one having but two wheels and drawn by one horse; a cart.
2. A vehicle adapted to the rails of a railroad. [U. S.]
Note: ☞ In England a railroad passenger car is called a railway carriage; a freight car a goods wagon; a platform car a goods truck; a baggage car a van. But styles of car introduced into England from America are called cars; as, tram car. Pullman car. See Train.
3. A chariot of war or of triumph; a vehicle of splendor, dignity, or solemnity. [Poetic].
The gilded car of day. --Milton.
The towering car, the sable steeds. --Tennyson.
4. Astron. The stars also called Charles's Wain, the Great Bear, or the Dipper.
The Pleiads, Hyads, and the Northern Car. --Dryden.
5. The cage of a lift or elevator.
6. The basket, box, or cage suspended from a balloon to contain passengers, ballast, etc.
7. A floating perforated box for living fish. [U. S.]
Car coupling, or Car coupler, a shackle or other device for connecting the cars in a railway train. [U. S.]
Dummy car Railroad, a car containing its own steam power or locomotive.
Freight car Railrood, a car for the transportation of merchandise or other goods. [U. S.]
Hand car Railroad, a small car propelled by hand, used by railroad laborers, etc. [U. S.]
Horse car, or Street car, an omnibus car, draw by horses or other power upon rails laid in the streets. [U. S.]
Palace car, Drawing-room car, Sleeping car, Parlor car, etc. Railroad, cars especially designed and furnished for the comfort of travelers.
◄ ►
parlor car
n : a passenger car for day travel; you pay extra fare for
individual chairs [syn: parlour car, drawing-room car,
palace car, chair car]