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., I. xv. 231. There she is, sitting now in her state-room, surrounded by … little and big carpet-bags, 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.
