Par"lor (?), n. [OE. parlour, parlur, F. parloir, LL. parlatorium. See Parley.] [Written also parlour.] 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.

&fist; "In England people who have a drawing-room no longer call it a parlor, as they called it of old and till recently." Fitzed. Hall.

• (Especially Southern US): a covered open-air patio.
  
• A room for lounging (especially for reading); a sitting-room; a drawing-room.
  
• (archaic): 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.