/ˈnɑːθɛks/
noun · etym: noemic-greek · narrowed from architectural usage · church vestibule + private rite
a vestibule you visit briefly, with reverence, even when you are alone.
the narthex is the room before the room. the corner of the kitchen where one stands to take off a coat. the small carpeted square inside the front door. the landing on the third floor before the apartment one rents.
no service is held in the narthex; it is the place one prepares for the service of being indoors. visitors who skip the narthex enter the house but do not arrive at it. one can identify the narthex of any building by finding the place at which the body slows without being told. compare the doors wing, where the threshold itself is the subject.
in a sentence: "i stood in the narthex of the bookshop for a moment, shaking the rain off, before i was permitted to look at anything."
see also · threshhold antemerid ritual doors corridor