In 7–8 antichamber. [a. Fr. antichambre, f. anti for ante before + chambre room, bedroom, after It. anticamera. ‘It is generally written, improperly, antichamber.’ Johnson, 1755–83.]
1. A chamber or room leading to the chief apartment; an ante-room, in which visitors wait; orig. the room admitting into the (royal) bed-chamber.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Antichambre, any outward chamber which is next or near the bed-chamber.
a. 1667. Cowley, Liberty, Wks. II. 679. He’s besieg’d by two or three hundred suitors; and the Hall and Antichambers (all the outworks) possess’d by the Enemy.
1709. Lond. Gaz., mmmmdlviii/2. Her Majesty met them half-way of her Anti-chamber.
1789. Smyth, trans. Aldrich’s Archit. (1818), 138. Beyond these antechambers were larger rooms or halls.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., IV. 39. He stayed long in the antechamber, and sent in his name by several servants.
2. fig.
1825. J. Neal, Bro. Jonathan, II. 347. The ante-chamber of death.
1875. Hamerton, Intell. Life, III. ii. 81. Grammars and dictionaries are antechambers.
3. transf. Any space forming the entrance to another.
1845. Todd & Bowman, Phys. Anat., I. 434. The mouth, the ante-chamber to the digestive canal.
1862. Darwin, Orchids, i. 21. The ante-chamber to the nectary … is here small.
