anteroom

plural anterooms · alternative ante-room · alternative anti-room · alternative antiroom

1. A room before, or forming an entrance to, another; a waiting room.

   Several antique games, such as a skiddles table, occupy an upstairs anteroom.

   1997, Michael McKenzie, Arrowhead Home of the Chiefs

   2 more examples

   [T]his was one of the anterooms off the main throneroom in which the king was accustomed to hold court with his entire retinue.

   1919, Edgar Rice Burroughs, chapter 19, in Tarzan the Untamed

   These stories take on pulp fiction’s sensational subjects. But episodes of murder, suicide and adultery turn out to be just anterooms to an echo chamber filled with subtle and far-reaching thematic reverberations.

   2009 December 3, “Editors’ Choice”, in The New York Times Book Review, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 26 Jan 2021

   Synonyms: antechamber, foreroom