keeping room

plural keeping rooms · alternative keeping-room

1. New EnglandUKUSdateddialectalThe main room of a house.

   The keeping room, with its large, open-hearth fireplace, served as her kitchen and main living area.

   2004, Carla Neggers, Night Scents, page 10

   3 more examples

   The keeping room became less utilitarian as kitchens, storage area, and bedrooms were added onto homes.

   1998, Lisa Skolnik, ADL: American Country, page 31

   The keeping room, where most of the cooking and living was once done, has five doors: one on either side of the fireplace, opening into each of the front parlors, one to a borning room on the west, one to a weaving room on the east, and one to a summer kitchen in back.

   2006, Blue Balliett, Nantucket Ghosts, page 17

   Taking to her bed is Baby Suggs's act of surrender; the keeping room becomes her final enclosure—she only leaves it after her death.

   2011, Annette R. Federico, Gilbert and Gubar's The Madwoman in the Attic After Thirty Years