1. A state apartment; a room in a palace, great house, hotel, etc., splendidly decorated and furnished, and used only on ceremonial occasions.
1703. Lond. Gaz., No. 3943/4. Several Tables were plentifully covered in the State-Room, and in the Guildhall.
1742. Young, Love of Fame, I. 170. When lo! my Lord to some small corner runs, And leaves state-rooms to strangers and to duns.
1853. Felton, Fam. Lett., vi. (1865), 40. I have seen but few places yet; but have passed through the state-rooms of the Tuileries.
1886. Ruskin, Præterita, I. x. 308. A grand military dinner in the state room of the Sussex, at Tunbridge Wells.
1912. Blackw. Mag., Oct., 501/2. Prince Arthur, when a goy of nine or ten, stayed twice in the College, probably in the Founder’s state-rooms.
fig. 1817. Coleridge, Biog. Lit., II. 79, note. The mechanical system of philosophy … leaves the idea of omnipresence a mere abstract notion in the state room of our reason.
2. A captain’s or superior officer’s room on board ship. (Cf. state-cabin, STATE sb. 41.)
1660. Pepys, Diary, 24 April. Very pleasant we were on board the London which hath a state-room much bigger than the Nazeby, but not so rich.
1694. Lond. Gaz., No. 2982/3. The Yacht having lost in this Rencounter but 3 men, who were killed by one great Shot in the State-Room.
1748. Smollett, Rod. Rand., xxxv. A cabbin was made for him contiguous to the state-room, where Whiffle slept.
1834. M. Scott, Cruise Midge, xvii. The cabin had two state-rooms, as they are called in merchantmen, opening off it.
1836. Marryat, Midsh. Easy, xiv. In the captain’s state-room they had found fourteen thousand dollars in bags.
3. U.S. A sleeping apartment with one or two berths on a passenger steamer.
1837. Ht. Martineau, Soc. Amer., III. 152. On board steam-boats which have not separate state-rooms, there are no means of preserving sufficient cleanliness and health.
1842. Dickens, Amer. Notes (1850), 1/1. This state-room had been specially engaged for ‘Charles Dickens, Esquire, and Lady.’
1852. Mrs. Stowe, Uncle Tom’s C., xv. There she is, sitting now in her state room, surrounded by little and big carpetbags, boxes, baskets.
1873. Medley, Autumn Tour U.S. & Canada, v. 77. On the middle deck [of the steamer] is a splendid saloon,… with most comfortable sleeping cabins on both sides, which, by the way, are always called ‘State-rooms.’
b. A private compartment in a railway train.
1867. W. H. Dixon, New Amer., II. 291. On the Pennsylvania central line, a lady entered into my state-room.
1872. De Vere, Americanisms, 359. In the new Palace Cars they pay more, if they engage a state-room.
1884. E. Yates, Recoll., II. 264. I used to engage a ‘state-room,’ i.e. a private compartment, on the train.
4. Boating. (See quot.)
1857. P. Colquhoun, Comp. Oarsman’s Guide, 29. Seats termed ‘thwarts,’ forward, midship, after, and backward thwart; the state-room being the space between the back-board or after, and the midship thwart.
