# hall

Pronunciation: say "HAWL" US /hɔl/, UK /hɔːl/

## Noun

1. A large room used for meetings, gatherings, or public events.
   - Simple: A big room where many people gather for events or meetings.
   - _The town council booked the hall for its annual meeting._
   - _Hundreds of guests filled the hall for the awards ceremony._
2. A corridor or passage inside a building that connects rooms or leads to them.
   - Simple: A long, narrow space inside a building that connects the rooms.
   - _The bedrooms all open onto a narrow hall._
   - _She kicked off her shoes in the hall by the front door._
3. A building that provides living accommodation for students at a university.
   - Simple: A building at a college or university where students live.
   - _Most first-year students are offered a room in a hall near campus._
   - _The new hall houses over three hundred undergraduates._
4. In some colleges, the dining hall where students eat together, or the meal served there, as in to go to hall.
   - Simple: In some colleges, the big room where students eat together, or the meal they eat there.
   - _After lectures, she hurried to hall for dinner._
   - _The college hall offers a vegetarian option at every meal._
5. A manor house: the large country residence of a landed family.
   - Simple: A large country house owned by an important family.
   - _The estate centers on a Tudor hall surrounded by parkland._
   - _Everyone in the village worked for the family up at the hall, either on the farm or in the house._
6. The principal room of a secular medieval building, used as the center of household life.
   - Simple: The main, biggest room in an old building used for daily life, not for worship.
   - _In the medieval manor, the lord, his family, and the servants all gathered around the fire in the hall each evening._
   - _The household gathered in the hall for meals and entertainment._
7. A living room: the main room in a home used for sitting and relaxing. *(India)*
   - Simple: The room in a home where the family sits and relaxes together.
   - _The family gathered in the hall to watch television in the evening._
   - _Guests were seated in the hall while tea was brought out from the kitchen._

## Noun

8. A passage cleared through a crowd, as to make room for dancing. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: An open space cleared through a crowd, often to make room for dancing.

## Other meanings

- (noun) An institution that provides specialized professional training or awards professional degrees and licenses.

## Origin

This word comes from Middle English "halle," from Old English "heall" (meaning hall, dwelling, palace, temple, or law-court). It traces back through Proto-West Germanic "*hallu" and Proto-Germanic "*hallō" to the Proto-Indo-European root "*ḱel-" ("to hide, conceal"). It is related to German "Halle," Dutch "hal," and Latin "cella," and is a doublet of "cell" and "cella."

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/hall (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).