Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A lobby or anteroom, as of a theater or hotel.
  • noun An entrance hall; a vestibule.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In theaters, opera-houses, ect., a public room at or near the entrance next to or comprising the lobby: often, as in the Grand Opera at Paris, a magnificent saloon, elaborately decorated.
  • noun In a furnace, the crucible or basin which holds the molten metal.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A lobby in a theater; a greenroom.
  • noun The crucible or basin in a furnace which receives the molten metal.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A lobby, corridor, or waiting room, used in a hotel, theater, etc.
  • noun The crucible or basin in a furnace which receives the molten metal.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a large entrance or reception room or area

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, social center, from Old French foier, fireplace, from Vulgar Latin *focārium, from Late Latin, neuter of focārius, of the hearth (unattested sense), from Latin focus, fire.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French foyer ("hearth, lobby"), in turn from Vulgar Latin *focārium, from Late Latin focārius, from Latin focus ("hearth")

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Examples

Comments

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  • This Wordie place can have a decidedly spatial vibe to it, at times, if it wants to.... As if you're wandering through a quasi-infinite, ever-evolving mansion in which each word is a room (and each list is a wing?). And characters inhabit the mansion; come and go as they please; congregate in certain rooms (like the erstwhile smoking klatsch over at cigarette!) And some rooms are so quiet as to evince a mystical reverence—until some happy traveler strolls through and with obscure footfalls undeafens the silence with delightfully humble cream pie!

    To quote Calvin: "This is so cool I have to go to the bathroom!"

    September 16, 2007

  • And, you can draw a door any place you want, to any other place, as if with magical chalk, just by making brackets! I do so love a vibrant, experiential metaphor!

    September 16, 2007

  • Excellent, nypdyuan! Wordie at work. Oh, the joys.... :-D

    September 16, 2007

  • I love it. Sounds like a horror story of sorts, if only because the mansion is so incredibly huge and there are comparatively so few of us, calling to mind big echoey spaces and high vaulted ceilings. Even when there are a bunch of us in one room, we still feel very very small. There's that eerie sensation that we're being watched from somewhere... as the moonlight phases through the midnight rainstorm outside and shines onto the floor through the windowpanes, a gnarled tree branch scratches ominous messages to us on the glass. Soon enough, we flee into the hall, footsteps reverberating, and find another room in which to gather (until fear gets the best of us again).

    September 17, 2007

  • Oh, great. Now Wordie gives me the creeps. ;->

    September 17, 2007

  • But it's (we're) the best kind of creeps!

    September 17, 2007

  • Welllll...okay. If you say so. :-)

    September 17, 2007

  • I must add that "and with obscure footfalls undeafens the silence" is a classic line.

    September 18, 2007