Other forms: lounges, lounging
A lounge is a quiet room where certain passengers wait. The airport lounge, a business lounge, use the lounge.
Access is by ticket class, membership or payment, and the free food and quiet are most of the point. In hotels the lounge is the public sitting room, and in British homes the lounge is the sitting room — a word class-marked enough that people notice which of lounge, sitting room and front room you use. As a verb, to lounge is to sit or lie about lazily: lounging on the sofa. Note lounge suit and lounger.
1nounloungeA quiet room where passengers or guests wait.
“The lounge was full and the flight was delayed anyway.”
2nounsittingA sitting room in a house or hotel.
“The lounge has not been decorated since about 1988.”
3verbsitTo sit or lie about lazily.
“They lounged in the garden the whole afternoon.”
lounge is a room, or a way of resting.
The verb came first, probably from French s'allonger, to stretch out. The room is named after the activity, which makes lounge one of the few English rooms named for what people do nothing in.
French
s'allonger — to lie down
English, today
lounge
Origin unknown. Perhaps French s'allonger (“to lie down”). Compare French longer (“to walk along”). Compare also German lungern (“to hang or lounge around, linger”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA