Ever notice that most spaces in a house are pretty literal? Living room. Dining room. Bedroom. Bathroom. But then there’s the kitchen—no “room” in sight.

It turns out, the answer is hiding in history.

The word kitchen comes from the Old English cycene, which came from the Latin coquina—both meaning “cooking place.” The “room” idea was already baked into the meaning (pun intended), so saying “kitchen room” would have sounded as silly as “cooking place room.”

And the kitchen isn’t alone. There are plenty of other rooms that secretly have “room” built right into their names:

• Pantry – From Old French paneterie, “bread room.”
• Cellar – From Latin cellarium, “storage chamber.”
• Closet – From Old French closet, “small enclosed space.”
• Hall – From Old English heall, “large covered room.”
• Den – From Old English denn, “small enclosed shelter.”
• Study – From Latin studium, “place of study.”
• Nursery – From Middle English noricerie, “place for children.”
• Attic – From Greek Attikos, meaning an upper space in that architectural style.
• Parlor – From Old French parler, “to speak,” once the main sitting room.

So next time you’re standing in your kitchen, you can smile knowing you’re technically already in the “kitchen room”—we just skip the extra word.

Fun fact: what we call the living room today was once called the parlor. The name changed in the early 1900s when families started spending more of their leisure time there, and the word “living” felt more… well, alive.

At GEM, we think history like this is just another reminder that homes aren’t just walls and paint—they’re stories. And we love bringing those stories to life.