A waiting room is a building, or more commonly a part of a building where people sit or stand until the event they are waiting for occurs.

There are generally two types of waiting room. One is where individuals leave one at a time, for instance at a doctor's office or a hospital

Hospital

A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment by specialized staff and equipment. Hospitals often, but not always, provide for inpatient care or longer-term patient stays....

, or outside a school headmaster's office. The other is where people leave en masse such as those at train station

Train station

A train station, also called a railroad station or railway station and often shortened to just station,"Station" is commonly understood to mean "train station" unless otherwise qualified. This is evident from dictionary entries e.g...

s, bus station

Bus station

A bus station is a structure where city or intercity buses stop to pick up and drop off passengers. It is larger than a bus stop, which is usually simply a place on the roadside, where buses can stop...

s, and airport

Airport

An airport is a location where aircraft such as fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and blimps take off and land. Aircraft may be stored or maintained at an airport...

s. These two examples also highlight the difference between waiting rooms where one is asked to wait (private waiting room) and waiting rooms one can just enter at will (public waiting rooms).

Most waiting rooms contain seats for people so they do not have to stand. Some have adjacent toilet

Toilet

A toilet is a sanitation fixture used primarily for the disposal of human excrement, often found in a small room referred to as a toilet/bathroom/lavatory...

s. It is not uncommon to find vending machine

Vending machine

A vending machine is a machine which dispenses items such as snacks, beverages, alcohol, cigarettes, lottery tickets, consumer products and even gold and gems to customers automatically, after the customer inserts currency or credit into the machine....

s in public waiting rooms or book

Book

A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...

s and magazine

Magazine

Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...

s in private waiting rooms. In some countries there are special waiting rooms especially for those who have paid for them, for example at airports and railway stations. These will generally be less crowded and will have superior seating and more facilities.

The films Brief Encounter

Brief Encounter

Brief Encounter is a 1945 British film directed by David Lean about the conventions of British suburban life, centring on a housewife for whom real love brings unexpectedly violent emotions. The film stars Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway and Joyce Carey...

and The Terminal

The Terminal

The Terminal is a 2004 American comedy-drama film directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Hanks and Catherine Zeta-Jones. It is about a man trapped in a terminal at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport when he is denied entry into the United States and at the same time cannot...

use waiting rooms as sets for a large part of their duration. They are used elsewhere in the arts to symbolise waiting in the general sense, to symbolise transition in life and for scenes of a romantic

Romantic love

Romance is the pleasurable feeling of excitement and mystery associated with love.In the context of romantic love relationships, romance usually implies an expression of one's love, or one's deep emotional desires to connect with another person....

 or sad nature.

See also

• Airport lounge
  Airport lounge
  An airport lounge is a lounge owned by a particular airline . Many offer private meeting rooms, phone, fax, wireless and Internet access and other business services, along with provisions to enhance comfort such as free drinks and snacks...