lobby [M16th] Both lobby and lodge [ME] go back to medieval Latin lobia ‘covered walk, portico’. The earliest uses of the word refer to monastic cloisters, but after Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries it moved into the world of the rich subjects who turned them into houses. A lobby became an antechamber or entrance hall, and is now often the foyer (see focus) of a hotel. The British Houses of Parliament, and other parliaments, have a central lobby where MPs can meet constituents and members of pressure groups, and two division lobbies where MPs assemble to vote. To lobby meaning ‘to try to influence a legislator’ originated from this arrangement in the USA. Logistics [L19th], originally the supplying of troops, developed in French from lodge.