Hall
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2008-07-09T16:10:22Z
Emperor Genius
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{{Otheruses}}
[[Image:Marwar Hall.jpg|thumb|250px|The Marwar Hall at [[Umaid Bhawan Palace]], [[Jodhpur]], [[India]].]]
[[Image:Hallway.JPG|right|thumb|A hallway at the [[Royal York Hotel]]]]
[[Image:Hallway insulation.jpg|thumb|right|Hallway during and after construction in an [[apartment]] [[building]] in [[Mississauga]], [[Ontario]], [[Canada]].]]
{{Wiktionarypar2|Hall|hall}}
Several things are commonly known as '''Halls''' or '''halls'''. For the development of meaning of the word 'hall', see [[Hall (concept)]].
A hall is fundamentally a relatively large space enclosed by a roof and walls. In the [[Iron Age]], a [[mead hall]] was such a simple building and was the residence of a lord and his retainers. Later, rooms were partitioned from it, so that today the hall of a house is the space inside the front door from which the rooms are reached.
Thus:
[[Image:Materdeihallway.jpg|thumb|left|A hallway in a [[New Jersey]] [[Catholic]] High School]]
*Deriving from the above, a hall is often the term used to designate a British or Irish [[country house]].
*In later [[medieval]] Europe, the main room of a [[castle]] or [[manor house]] was the [[great hall]].
*Where the hall inside the front door of a house is elongated, it may be called a [[passage]], or hallway. The corresponding space upstairs is a landing.
*In a medieval building, the hall was where the fire was kept. With time, its functions as [[dormitory]], [[kitchen]], [[parlour]] and so on were divided off to separate rooms or, in the case of the kitchen, a separate building.
On the same principle:
*Many buildings at colleges and [[university|universities]] are formally titled "_______ Hall", typically being named after the person who [[Financial endowment|endowed]] it, for example, [[King's Hall, Cambridge]]. Others, such as [[Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford]], commemorate respected people. Between these in age, [[Nassau Hall]] at [[Princeton University]] began as the single building of the then [[college]]. In medieval origin, these were the halls in which the members of the university lived together during term time. In many cases, some aspect of this [[community]] remains.
*At colleges in the universities of [[University of Oxford|Oxford]] and [[University of Cambridge|Cambridge]], Hall is the dining hall for students, with [[High Table]] at one end for fellows. Typically, at "[[Formal Hall]]", [[academic regalia|gowns]] are worn for dinner during the evening, whereas for "informal Hall" they are not.
*Many [[Livery Company|Livery Companies]] (e.g., in the [[City of London]]) have a Hall that is their headquarters and meeting place.
Similarly:
*A hall is also a building consisting largely of a principal room, that is rented out for meetings and social affairs. It may be privately or government-owned, such as a function hall owned by one company used for weddings and cotillions (organized and run by the same company on a contractual basis) or a community hall available for rent to anyone.
[[Image:Wfa081.jpg|thumb|300px|right|Firehall (London Ontario) 1923]]<br>
Following a line of similar development:
*In [[office]] buildings and larger buildings ([[theatre]]s, [[movie theater|cinemas]] etc), the entrance hall is generally known as the [[foyer]] (the French for fire-place). The [[atrium (architecture)|atrium]], a name sometimes used in public buildings for the entrance hall, was the central courtyard of a Roman house.
Derived from the residential meanings of the word:
*[[Hall (surname)|Hall]] is also a [[surname]] of people, one of whose ancestors lived in a hall as distinct from one such as [[David M. Cote]], whose ancestor will have lived in a cote, a much humbler place shared with the [[livestock]].
==Association with salt==
From a completely separate derivation:
A Hall is a brand of bitter (beer) made in Germany and sold worldwide, mainly across America.
*In German speaking areas, Hall (with a short ''a'') can also form part of a town name, like [[Halle, Saxony-Anhalt|Halle]], where the name refers to hall, the Celtic word for salt (compare [[Welsh language|Welsh]] [http://cy.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halen ''halen''] or Breton ''holen'' or Cornish ''holan''). In this connection, Hall is the short form of the name of:
# the medieval German town [[Schwäbisch Hall]], where Hall was its whole name prior to 1933
# the [[Austria]]n town [[Hall in Tirol]] near [[Innsbruck]], which used to be called Solbad Hall from 1938 to 1974,
#[[Hallstatt]] in [[Austria]] which gave its name to the Celtic [[Hallstatt culture]].
Sir [[Charles Hallé]] (originally Karl Halle) lent his name to the [[Hallé Orchestra]]. His forbears were probably associated with the German town of Halle. The accent was added to his name in order to assist English-speakers in pronouncing the word.
In the ancient world, the Celts were neighbours of the Greeks whose word for salt was ''halos'' (''`αλοσ''). While European science was developing, some branches of it adopted the Greek language as the source of its terminology. We therefore have words like [[halogen]], [[halide]], [[halotrichite]] and [[halocarbon]].
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[[Image:Karnak-Francis Frith.jpg|thumb|A picture taken by Francis Frith in 1856, of a Hall of Collums in Karnak, Egypt.]]
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[[Category:Rooms]]
[[Category:Surnames]]
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[[de:Foyer]]
[[it:Foyer]]
[[ka:ჰოლი (ოთახი)]]
[[nl:Foyer]]
[[pl:Foyer]]
[[pt:Hall]]
[[sv:Hall (rum)]]
[[yi:זאל]]
[[zh:禮堂]]