What is the origin of "Drawing Room"?

A drawing room is a room in a house where visitors may be entertained. The name is derived from the sixteenth-century terms withdrawing room and withdrawing chamber, which remained in use through the seventeenth century, and made their first written appearance in 1642. In a large sixteenth- to early eighteenth-century English house, a withdrawing room was a room to which the owner of the house, his wife, or a distinguished guest who was occupying one of the main apartments in the house could "withdraw" for more privacy. It was often off the great chamber (or the great chamber's descendant, the state room or salon) and usually led to a formal, or "state" bedroom….. Until the mid-twentieth century, after a dinner the ladies of a dinner party withdrew to the drawing room, leaving the gentlemen at table, where the cloth was removed. After an interval of conversation, the gentlemen rejoined the ladies in the drawing room. The term drawing room is not used as widely as it once was, and tends to be used in Britain only by those who also have other reception rooms, such as a morning room, a nineteenth-century designation for a sitting-room, often with east-facing exposure, suited for daytime calls, or the middle-class lounge, a late nineteenth-century designation for a room in which to relax; hence the drawing room is the smartest room in the house, usually used by the adults of the family when entertaining. This term is still widely used in India and Pakistan, probably since the colonial days, in the larger urban houses of the cities where there are many rooms. The term parlour initially designated the more modest reception rooms of the middle classes, but usage changed in the UK as homeowners sought to identify with the grander homes of the wealthy. Parlor remained the common usage in North America into the 20th century. In French usage the word salon, previously designating a state room, began to be used for a drawing room in the early part of the 19th century, reflecting the salon social gatherings that had become popular in the preceding decades……. The term drawing room was historically also applied to certain passenger train accommodations, designating some of the most spacious and expensive private accommodations available on board a sleeping car or private railroad car. In North America, it meant a room that slept three or more, with a private washroom.[4] Although Amtrak has retired its sleeping cars that were built with drawing rooms, they are still used by Via Rail Canada; the traditional nomenclature is seen as archaic, so they are officially sold as "triple bedrooms"…. The drawing room, being a room in the house to entertain visitors, gave its name to drawing room plays, a genre of theatrical productions and Motion picturesBeginning with the early forms of drama, the drawing room play has evolved to encompass comedy as well as to include the forms of the dramatic monologue. The play format itself has also grown out of the traditional drawing room performance and back into main street theater and film. While the drawing room itself has fallen out of favor, the play format has continued to provide a source of entertainment. Drawing room comedy typically features wit and verbal banter among wealthy, leisured, genteel, upper class characters read less

A drawing room is a room in a house where visitors may be entertained. The name is derived from the sixteenth-century terms withdrawing room and withdrawing chamber, which remained in use through the seventeenth century, and made their first written appearance in 1642. In a large sixteenth- to early eighteenth-century English house, a withdrawing room was a room to which the owner of the house, his wife, or a distinguished guest who was occupying one of the main apartments in the house could "withdraw" for more privacy. -Wikipedia read less