Etymologically
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saloon

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Pronunciation

Etymology

It is an anglicized form of the earlier salon,[2][3][4] borrowed from French salon,[5][6][7] with the ending of words such as balloon (see -oon).[2][8][9] The French word is from Italian salone (“large hall”), an augmentative of sala (“hall, room”),[5][7][10][4] which comes from Germanic, from Proto-Germanic *salą.[4][8] Its cognates include Old English sæl and sele (“hall”), Old High German sal, German Saal and Old Norse salr (“hall”),[8][11][12][7] and Kroonen and Orel relate the Germanic noun to the Slavic word for a village or field and to Lithuanian salà (“island”).[11][12] French salle (“hall”) goes back to the same source.[4][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

A large reception room or drawing room, the same as salon: 1728, in Ephraim Chambers's Cyclopædia.[5][3][14]

Semantic evolution

Between the early 18th and the early 19th century saloon was simply a variant of salon,[14] for a spacious room for receiving guests or showing works of art.[3] By extension it came to mean any large hall in a hotel or other public place, for assemblies, entertainments or exhibitions, from 1747.[5][3][14] From there it was applied to the large common cabin of a passenger ship, by 1817 according to Etymonline, about 1835 in the OED,[3][5] to a railway carriage furnished like a drawing room (1842),[5][3] and to rooms open to the public for a set purpose, such as a billiard saloon or a dancing saloon (1851).[5] The sense "public bar" arose in American English by 1841,[14][3][5] and the saloon became a fixture of the Western; a First and Last Chance Saloon at the edge of town was a name used in the US from about 1860, and the film Destry Rides Again (1939) spread it, giving the British phrase last chance saloon, a final chance to put something right.[15] In Britain a saloon bar was the better furnished part of a pub, where drinks cost more than in the public bar.[15][16] The closed motor car called a saloon is recorded from 1908;[5] Americans call it a sedan.[15][16]

Timeline

  • 1728 – a reception room or drawing room, a salon.[5][3][14]
  • 1747 – a large hall in a hotel or public place.[5][3]
  • 1810 – a salon in the sense of a fashionable gathering (now rare).[5]
  • by 1817 – a large cabin on a passenger ship (c. 1835 in the OED).[3][5]
  • 1841 – in the US, a bar where alcoholic drinks are sold.[5][14][3]
  • 1842 – a luxurious railway carriage.[5][3]
  • 1851 – a room open to the public for a set purpose, as a billiard saloon.[5]
  • about 1860 – First and Last Chance Saloon as the name of a saloon in the US.[15]
  • 1908 – a closed motor car.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (chiefly US and Canada) A bar where alcoholic drinks are sold and drunk, especially in the American West.[16][5][7]
  2. (British) A car with a closed body and a separate boot, seating four or more; a sedan.[16][5]
  3. (British) The more comfortable bar of a pub, also called a saloon bar or lounge.[16][15]
  4. A large public room on a passenger ship.[16][5]
  5. A large room used by the public for a particular purpose: a billiard saloon.[16][5]
  6. A large and elegant room for receiving guests; a salon.[7][5]
  7. (British) A luxurious railway carriage, also called a saloon car.[5][16]

Word family

  • saloonkeeper

Usage notes

The OED marks the sense "drawing room, salon" as now American,[5] while the closed car is a saloon in Britain and a sedan in the US, Canada and New Zealand.[16]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c d Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  7. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  8. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  9. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  10. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ a b Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  12. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  13. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  14. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  15. ^ a b c d e Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  16. ^ a b c d e f g h i Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins