Chamber; originally applied to a mansion, like the French hôtel. Hence Clifford’s Inn, once the mansion of De Clifford; Lincoln’s Inn, the mansion of the Earls of Lincoln; Gray’s Inn, that of the Lords Gray, etc.
“Now, whenas Phœbus, with his fiery waine,
Unto his inne began to draw apace.”
Spenser: Faërie Queene, vi. 3.
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.
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