triclinium

plural tricliniums · plural triclinia

1. Ancient RomeA couch for reclining at mealtimes, extending round three sides of a table, and usually in three parts.

   Seated on the triclinium in the midst is a middle-aged man, with a high and noble brow; the fine aquiline nose, so patrician, as if their eagle had set his own seal on his warlike race;...

   1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXI, in Romance and Reality. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 259

2. Ancient RomeA dining room furnished with such a triple couch.

   OECUS, the Latinized form of Gr. οἶκος, house, used by Vitruvius for the principal hall or saloon in a Roman house, which was used occasionally as a triclinium for banquets.

   1911, 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Oecus

   1 more example

   The manor house seemed still as the night itself. Morgan la Blanche had taken herself to a couch in the triclinium, choosing it rather than one of the cubicles leading from the atrium.

   1903, Warwick Deeping, Uther and Igraine, New York, N.Y.: The Outlook Company