room and board
{{Short description|Combined provision of accommodation and meals}}
{{About|the general concept}}
{{more footnotes needed|date=November 2012}}
File:Endicott College Stoneridge Hall empty dorm room.jpg, Massachusetts, USA]]
Room and board describes an accommodation which, in exchange for money, labour or other recompense, a person is provided with a place to live in addition to meals. It commonly occurs as a fee at higher educational institutions, such as colleges and universities; it also occurs in hotel-style accommodation for short stays.
Definition
- Room refers to a bedroom provided, sometimes private and occasionally with an en suite bathroom.
- Board refers to food being provided; the use of this term may derive from the Old English bord, meaning table.{{Cite book |last=Savelli |first=Mary |title=Old English Phrases |year=2011 |isbn=9781463780746 |pages=48}}
Two commonly encountered boards are:
- Half board, where the host provides only breakfast and dinner meals.
- Full board, where the host provides three daily meals.
Another option is:
- Bed and breakfast, literally, a place to sleep and where breakfast is provided.
See also
- Bistro, a type of informal French restaurant
- Boarding house, a lodging establishment
- Boarding school
- Parlour boarder, an archaic term for a category of pupil at boarding school
- Sideboard, an article of furniture from which food is served in a dining room
References
{{reflist}}
- [http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/15/messages/521.html Room and Board - phrase meaning and origin]
- [http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question30318.html I need to know where the phrase 'room and board' originated and w...]
- [http://www.snopes.com/language/phrases/1500.htm Life in the 1500s]