Boardrooms

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Rooms within a company or organization's premises specially designated for meetings of the board of directors
2. Spaces used by senior executives to hold formal discussions and make important decisions regarding an organization
3. Dedicated meeting rooms where the governing board of a corporation or institution convenes to discuss and plan

Etymology: The word "boardrooms" is simply the plural of "boardroom," and the story of its parts is older than the compound itself. "Board" comes from Old English "bord," a flat piece of timber, and it passed through Middle English before arriving in modern English with that same sense of a plank. "Room" has a separate line of descent: it traces back to Old English "rūm," meaning space or an open area, which carried the idea of a place with room to move in before it came to mean an enclosed chamber. The two parts were joined in English as a plain compound, board plus room, so the word needs no hidden story to explain it. Its meaning follows from the older sense of "board" as a table or a council seated around one. The board of a company or institution took its name from the table at which its members sat, and the boardroom is the room where that table stood.

Synonyms: meeting rooms, conference rooms