What does bedroom mean?
A bedroom is a room intended primarily for sleeping, almost always furnished with a bed and commonly supplemented by storage furniture such as wardrobes or dressers. It is one of the most basic units by which homes are described and valued: houses and apartments are routinely characterised by their number of bedrooms, and terms like 'master bedroom', 'spare bedroom', and 'two-bedroom flat' are standard in property language. The word also functions attributively, as in 'bedroom furniture', 'bedroom slippers', or 'bedroom community' (a residential town whose inhabitants commute to work elsewhere). Neutral in tone and universal across British and American English, it replaced older terms such as 'bedchamber' during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as domestic architecture increasingly designated specific rooms for specific purposes. Simple, transparent, and indispensable, it is among the most frequently used words in everyday descriptions of where people live.
nounA room furnished for sleeping in, typically containing a bed, and usually one of several rooms in a house or apartment.
- A room equipped and used for sleeping, typically containing a bed.
- (attributive) Relating to or suitable for the bedroom, as in 'bedroom furniture' or 'bedroom slippers'.
"The master bedroom overlooks the garden."
"She painted the bedroom a soft shade of blue."
"The house has three bedrooms and two bathrooms."
Regular plural. Very common in real-estate and architectural contexts, where the count of bedrooms describes a property's size.
"The cottage has two small bedrooms upstairs."
The word 'bedroom' is so young that Jane Austen never used it — her characters slept in 'bedchambers'.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of bedroom
Bedroom is a straightforward English compound of 'bed' (from Old English 'bedd') and 'room' (from Old English 'rūm'), both native Germanic words rather than borrowings from Latin or French. The compound arose comparatively late in the history of English, becoming established in the seventeenth century and spreading widely in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as homes came to be organised around specialised rooms. It gradually displaced the older, now archaic 'bedchamber' in ordinary use. Its component parts live on productively in many other compounds, such as 'bedside', 'bedding', 'roomy', and 'classroom'.
How bedroom is actually used
Entirely neutral in register; used equally in formal and informal contexts. In real-estate usage, the plural 'bedrooms' often stands alone ('a three-bed, two-bath home'). The attributive sense (bedroom furniture, bedroom eyes) is common and idiomatic.
Easily confused with bedroom
Bedchamber is an archaic or formal term for a sleeping room, whereas bedroom is the ordinary modern word.