Editing Drawing room (section)

{{Short description|Room in a house where visitors may be entertained}}
[[File:Sir William Burrell's drawing room.jpg|300px|thumb|Reconstructed drawing room of [[Sir William Burrell]]; part of the [[Burrell Collection]] in [[Glasgow]], [[Scotland]]]]
A '''drawing room''' is a [[room (architecture)|room]] in a house where visitors may be entertained, and an alternative name for a [[living room]]. The name is derived from the 16th-century terms '''withdrawing room''' and '''withdrawing chamber''', which remained in use through the 17th century, and made their first written appearance in 1642.<ref>http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/57558 "drawing-room", [[Oxford English Dictionary]], "1642 Ld. Sunderland Let. to Wife, The king..is very cheerful, and by the bawdy discourse I thought I had been in the drawing room."</ref> In a large 16th- to early 18th-century English house, a withdrawing room was a room to which the owner of the house, his wife, or a distinguished guest who was occupying one of the main apartments in the house could "withdraw" for more privacy. It was often off the [[great chamber]] (or the great chamber's descendant, the [[state room]]) and usually led to a formal, or "state" bedroom.<ref>Nicholas Cooper, ''Houses of the Gentry 1480–1680'' (English Heritage) 1999: "Parlours and withdrawing rooms 289–93.</ref>

In modern houses, it may be used as a convenient name for a second or further reception room, but no particular function is associated with the name.