A boudoir (bu.dwaʁ, ˈbuːd.wɑːr) is a lady

Lady

The word lady is a polite term for a woman, specifically the female equivalent to, or spouse of, a lord or gentleman, and in many contexts a term for any adult woman...

's private bedroom, sitting room or dressing room. The term derives from the French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 verb

Verb

A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...

 bouder, meaning "to be sulky" or boudeur, meaning "sulky".

In architecture

Historically, the boudoir formed part of the private suite

Suite

In music, a suite is an ordered set of instrumental or orchestral pieces normally performed in a concert setting rather than as accompaniment; they may be extracts from an opera, ballet , or incidental music to a play or film , or they may be entirely original movements .In the...

 of rooms of a lady, for bathing and dressing, adjacent to her bedchamber, being the female equivalent of the male cabinet. In later periods, the boudoir was used as a private drawing room

Drawing room

A drawing room is a room in a house where visitors may be entertained. The name is derived from the sixteenth-century terms "withdrawing room" and "withdrawing chamber", which remained in use through the seventeenth century, and made its first written appearance in 1642...

, and was used for other activities, such as embroidery

Embroidery

Embroidery is the art or handicraft of decorating fabric or other materials with needle and thread or yarn. Embroidery may also incorporate other materials such as metal strips, pearls, beads, quills, and sequins....

 or spending time with one's romantic partner.

English language usage varies between countries, and is now largely historical. In the United Kingdom, in the period when the term was most often used (Victorian era

Victorian era

The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...

 and early 20th century), a boudoir was a lady's evening sitting room, and was separate from her morning room, and her dressing room. As this multiplicity of rooms with overlapping functions suggests, boudoirs were generally only found in grand houses. In the United States, in the same era, boudoir was an alternative term for dressing room, favored by those who felt that French terms conferred more prestige.

In Caribbean English, a boudoir is the front room of the house where women entertain family and friends.

In furniture

Recently, the term boudoir has come to denote a style of furnishing for the bedroom that is traditionally described as ornate or busy. The plethora of links available on the Internet to furnishing sites using the term boudoir tend to focus on Renaissance and French inspired bedroom styles. They have, in recent times also been used to describe the 'country cottage

Cottage

__toc__In modern usage, a cottage is usually a modest, often cozy dwelling, typically in a rural or semi-rural location. However there are cottage-style dwellings in cities, and in places such as Canada the term exists with no connotations of size at all...

' style with whitewashed-style walls, large and heavy bed furniture, and deep bedding.

In photography

A great deal of "boudoir" is now created in the photographer's studio or in luxury hotel suites, where it has become very fashionable to create a set of sensual images for women in "boudoir style". This often takes the shape of partly clothed images or images in lingerie, and has become more than just a passing fad for brides to surprise their future husbands. Although in the past there were many negative connotations associated with boudoir photography, in recent years the trend has begun to gain momentum, and the entire look of boudoir photography has begun to change.

Bridal boudoir photography is becoming particularly popular. Brides often have an album of boudoir style photographs made as a present for their soon to be husbands. Other common themes for boudoir photography are anniversaries, birthdays, Valentine's Day, weight loss, maternity, any form of body change or alteration (breast augmentation or reduction, etc.), and for soldiers overseas.