'courtroom' originates from the combination of 'court' and 'room', where 'court' referred to a place where justice is administered and 'room' referred to an enclosed space.

'court' evolved from the Old French word 'cort', which was derived from the Latin 'cohors', meaning 'enclosure'. 'Room' comes from the Old English 'rum', meaning 'space'.

Initially, 'courtroom' simply referred to a room within a court, but it has come to specifically denote the space where legal proceedings occur.