Other forms: anterooms
An anteroom is a small room leading into a larger one. Wait in the anteroom, the anteroom to the hall, an anteroom off the corridor.
It exists so that people can be kept waiting somewhere, which is its whole architectural purpose and a good deal of its social one. The ante- means before, and it is spelled with an e rather than the anti- meaning against.
1nounanteroomA small room leading into a larger one.
“Visitors were asked to wait in the anteroom until the minister was ready to see them.”
anteroom is a room.
Ante, before, plus room, on the model of French antichambre.
Italian
anticamera
French
antichambre
English, today
anteroom
From ante- + room, as a French antichambre or its model Italian anticamera.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA