English

Alternative forms

• pumproom, pump-room

Noun

pump room ‎(plural pump rooms)

1. (dated, sometimes capitalized) A room or structure at a spa where mineral water is drawn from a spring and consumed, often serving as a venue for polite socializing and conversation.
   • 1837, Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers, ch. 36:

     The Great Pump Room is a spacious saloon, ornamented with Corinthian pillars, and a music-gallery, and a Tompion clock, and a statue of Nash, and a golden inscription, to which all the water-drinkers should attend, for it appeals to them in the cause of a deserving charity. There is a large bar with a marble vase, out of which the pumper gets the water; and there are a number of yellow-looking tumblers, out of which the company get it; and it is a most edifying and satisfactory sight to behold the perseverance and gravity with which they swallow it.

   • 1847, Mary Howitt (translator), Hans Christian Andersen (author), The True Story of My Life, ch. 7:

     [E]ven the German visitors at the baths honored me by drinking my health in the pump-room.

   • 2003 Aug. 10, Jacqueline Friedrich, "Choice Tables: Sophisticated Repasts in Bath," New York Times (retrieved 9 Oct 2012):

     In the 18th and early 19th centuries, the beautiful people came here for the season, taking the waters, meeting for tea in the Pump Room and for balls in the Assembly Rooms.

References

• pump room at OneLook Dictionary Search