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Hall

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hall¹

  • /hɔːl/ UK
  • /hoːl/ Australia, British, New Zealand, Southern, Standard
  • /hɔl/
  • /hɑl/ cot caught merger
  • /hɔl/ Scotland
  • /haːl/ Northumbria

Sounds like haul · Rhymes with -ɔːl

Where it comes from

Inherited from Middle English halle (“hall”), from Old English heall (“hall, dwelling, house, palace, temple, law-court”), from Proto-West Germanic *hallu (“hall”), from Proto-Germanic *hallō (“hall”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱel- (“to hide, conceal”).

Cognate with Scots hall, haw (“hall”), Dutch hal (“hall”), German Halle (“hall”), Danish hal (“hall, sports centre”), Faroese høll (“hall, palace”), Icelandic höll (“palace”), Norwegian hall (“hall”), Swedish hall (“hall”), Latin cella (“room, cell”), Sanskrit शाला (śā́lā, “house, mansion, hall”). Doublet of cell and cella.

noun halls

  1. A corridor; a hallway. The drinking fountain was out in the hall.
  2. A large meeting room. The hotel had three halls for conferences, and two were in use by the convention.
  3. A manor house (originally because a magistrate's court was held in the hall of his mansion). The duke lived in a great hall overlooking the sea.
  4. A building providing student accommodation at a university. The student government hosted several social events so that students from different halls would intermingle.
  5. The principal room of a secular medieval building.
  6. obsolete Cleared passageway through a crowd, as for dancing. Then cry, a hall, a hall! Come, father Rosin, with your fiddle now.
  7. A place for special professional education, or for conferring professional degrees or licences. a Divinity Hall; Apothecaries' Hall
  8. India A living room.
  9. A college's canteen, which is often but not always coterminous with a traditional hall.
  10. A meal served and eaten at a college's hall.

Hall²

Where it comes from

* As an English, Scottish, Irish, German, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish surname: all from the noun hall. The name was likely reinforced by similar sounding words such as Swedish häll (“rock slab”).

* As a Chinese surname, variant Romanization of 何, 賀 /贺 (hè), see He.

** (locomotive): The locomotives were named after English and Welsh country houses with 'Hall' in their titles.

** (British and Scandinavian surnames): From the buildings, halls

proper noun Halls

  1. countable, uncountable A British and Scandinavian topographic surname from Middle English for someone who lived in or near a hall.
  2. countable, uncountable A surname from German for someone associated with a salt mine.
  3. countable, uncountable An Anglo-Norman surname.
  4. countable, uncountable A village in Gelderland, Netherlands.
  5. countable, uncountable Former name of Las Lomas, a CDP in California.
  6. countable, uncountable An unincorporated community in Morgan County, Indiana.
  7. countable, uncountable An unincorporated community in Granite County, Montana.
  8. countable, uncountable A hamlet and census-designated place in Ontario County, New York.
  9. countable, uncountable An unincorporated community in Clark County, Washington.
  10. countable, uncountable An unincorporated community in Barbour County, West Virginia.
  11. countable, uncountable A village in the Australian Capital Territory, Australia.

noun Halls

  1. UK Hall class, a class of steam locomotive used on the GWR.

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