Etymology Inherited from Middle English parlour, from Old French parleor, parloir, parleoir, from the verb parler (“to speak”); compare Medieval Latin parlātōrium. Doublet of parloir. Displaced native Old English sprǣchūs.
The living room of a house, or a room for entertaining guests; a room for talking; a sitting-room or drawing room.
Dated outside Mid-Atlantic US
So, after a spell, he decided to make the best of it and shoved us into the front parlor. 'Twas a dismal sort of place, with hair wreaths, and wax fruit, and tin lambrekins, and land knows what all.1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter XII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
2
Archaic The apartment in a monastery or nunnery where the residents are permitted to meet and converse with each other or with visitors from the outside.
Immediately at hand was a small, mean public-house - one of those dingy establishments that seem to express, by their morbid and retiring appearance, a certain anxiety to escape the eye of the police - and into the parlour of this hostel Quin promptly led the way.1913, Norman Lindsay, A Curate in Bohemia, Sydney: N.S.W. Bookstall Co., published 1932, page 135:
There had been a surprise party and some had entered his hotel parlour to get drink; before he was aware of it the accordion was being played in the room.1957 July 4, The Nepean Times, Penrith, NSW, page 2, column 2:
Etymology Inherited from Middle English parlour, from Old French parleor, parloir, parleoir, from the verb parler (“to speak”); compare Medieval Latin parlātōrium. Doublet of parloir. Displaced native Old English sprǣchūs.
1
Used in or appropriate for a parlor.
Parlor painting.
2
Figuratively Advocating something in a secluded place without actual involvement or action.