A Hall Used to Be the Whole House
A hallway is the passage inside a front door. The word hall once meant the single great room a household lived in.
A hallway is the passage linking the rooms of a house, usually starting at the front door. The demotion is remarkable. In Anglo-Saxon England the hall *was* the house: one great room where the household ate, argued and slept. As houses divided into rooms, the hall shrank to the space between them.
- A corridor or entrance passage. *Shoes in the hallway.*
- Hall — the same thing, in British usage. *Leave it in the hall.*
- A large public room. *The village hall.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | hallway | A narrow hallway. |
| Plural | hallways | Long hallways. |
| Related | hall | The entrance hall. |
| Related | corridor | A hospital corridor. |
| Related | landing | The upstairs landing. |
How it is used in a sentence
- The hallway needs painting.American and increasingly British.
- He hung his coat in the hall.British shorthand for the same space.
- The hallways were full between lessons.American school usage; Britain says corridors.
Passages by name
- Hallway — inside a house, from the front door
- Corridor — a long passage in a public building
- Landing — the flat area at the top of stairs
- Foyer — the entrance space of a theatre or hotel
- Vestibule — a small lobby just inside the door
From *hall*, Old English *heall*, a large room, plus *way*. The great hall survives in colleges and country houses, where dinner is still served in hall.
Hallway or corridor?
Hallway is domestic and American; corridor suits schools, hospitals and offices, especially in British English.
Why is a concert hall called a hall?
Because it keeps the old sense of one large room for gathering, which is the original meaning of the word.