[STILL sb.1] a. Hist. Originally, a room in a house in which a still was kept for the distillation of perfumes and cordials. b. In later use, a room in which preserves, cakes, liqueurs, etc., are kept, and tea, coffee, etc., are prepared. Also attrib. in still-room maid, window.
c. 1710. Celia Fiennes, Diary (1888), 299. On one side is a building, a summer parlour for a still room.
1810. Malone, Lett., 30 Jan., in Windham Papers, II. 367. Pray, what is the precise notion of a still-room…? I imagine it is a housekeeper’s room, where china and stores are kept…. I never once heard the word, till I heard it used by a lady, a few months ago.
1833. Loudon, Encycl. Archit., § 1698. A door in the housekeeper’s room should open into the still-room, in which the housekeeper, assisted by the still-room maid, would make preserves, cakes, &c.
1853. Dickens, etc., Househ. Words, Christm. No. 2/2. She used to give him a good-humoured look out of her still-room window sometimes.
1858. Thackeray, Virgin., xlv. A hundred years ago, every lady in the country had her still-room, and her medicine-chest, her pills, powders, potions, for all the village round.
1862. Draper & Clothier, III. 9/2. This agreeable lady … announced herself as ‘Mrs. Brown, the still-room maid.’… Mrs. Brown had to take charge of vast quantities of stores in daily use,—goods sent in from grocers, oilmen, chandlers, and tradesmen of that class.
1865. J. B. Harwood, Lady Flavia, xlvi. There was babbling in milliners’ work-rooms, and in what are facetiously called the still-rooms of country mansions.
1901. Daily Chron., 10 Sept., 10/6. Still-room Maid … wanted immediately.
1906. Westm. Gaz., 7 June, 12/1. The still-room of the House of Commons is badly situated, and has but a small window through which to pass supplies.
