foyer

UK/ˈfɔɪ.eɪ/US/ˈfɔɪ.ɚ/

nounB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #8,777 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: foyers

A foyer is the entrance hall of a public building. Meet in the foyer, the theatre foyer, a hotel foyer.

It is designed as a holding space — somewhere to arrive, wait and leave without blocking the doors — and in a theatre it earns money in the interval. The French word means a hearth, from the same root as focus, because the fireplace was where people gathered.

Definitions of foyer

1nounfoyerThe entrance hall of a public building.B2+
“We met in the foyer of the theatre before the show started.”

foyer is a hall.

Where it comes from

French foyer means a hearth, from Latin focus, a fireplace. Focus and fuel are relatives.

Latin
focārius
Vulgar Latin
*focārium
French
foyer — hearth, lobby
English, today
foyer

Borrowed from French foyer (“hearth, lobby”), in turn from Vulgar Latin focārium, from Latin focārius, from Latin focus (“hearth”). Cognate with Spanish hogar (“home”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Buildings & Architecture

Practise this word

foyer in the wild

A lobby is a room in a building used for entry from the outside, sometimes referred to as a foyer, entryway, reception area, or entrance hall.
Lobby (room)
Garden Wreath is a 1997 sculpture by American artist Larry Kirkland, located in the entry foyer of the Central Library in Portland, Oregon.
Garden Wreath
After World War II, foyers were used to provide accommodation for a movement of people from rural France to cities seeking work.
Foyer (housing model)
A foyer is a type of room, typically an entrance.
Foyer (disambiguation)

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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