closet

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See also: clóset

English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Middle English closet, from Old French closet, from clos (“private area”) +‎ -et (“forming diminutives”), from Latin clausum. Equivalent to close +‎ -et, but generally applied in French solely to small open-air enclosures.[1]

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

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closet (plural closets)

  1. (obsolete) Any private area, particularly bowers in the open air.
  2. (now rare) Any private or inner room, particularly:
    • Goldsmith
      a chair-lumbered closet, just twelve feet by nine
    1. (obsolete) A private room used by women to groom and dress themselves.
    2. (archaic) A private room used for prayer or other devotions.
    3. (figuratively, archaic) A place of (usually fanciful) contemplation and theorizing.
      • a. 1600, Robert Hooker, Of Lawes Eccl. and Politie, Ch. vii, § 24:
        ...abroad and at home, at their Tables or in their Closets...
    4. (archaic) The private residence or private council chamber of a monarch.
  3. (obsolete) A pew or side-chapel reserved for a monarch or other feudal lord.
  4. A private cabinet, particularly:
    1. (obsolete) One used to store valuables.
    2. (archaic) One used to store curiosities.
      • 1659, Elias Ashmole, Diary, p. 326:
        Mr. Tradescant and his wife told me they had been long considering upon whom to bestow their closet of curiosities when they died.
      • 1681, Marquis of Halifax, Seasonable Addresses to the Houses of Parliament in Concise Succession, p. 10:
        The late House of Commons have... seiz'd Closets and Writings without Information.
    3. (now chiefly US) One used to store food or other household supplies: a cupboard.
    4. (figuratively) A secret or hiding place, particularly the hiding place in English idioms such as in the closet and skeleton in the closet.
      The closet can be a scary place for a gay teenager.
  5. (now chiefly Scotland, Ireland) Any small room or side-room, particularly:
    1. (US) One intended for storing clothes or bedclothes.
    2. (obsolete) Clipping of closet of ease or later (Britain) water closet: a room containing a toilet.
  6. (heraldry) An ordinary similar to a bar but half as broad.
  7. (Scotland, obsolete) A sewer.

Synonyms[edit]

Hyponyms[edit]

Derived terms[edit]

Derived terms

Translations[edit]

toilet — see toilet

Adjective[edit]

closet (not comparable)

  1. (obsolete) Private.
  2. Secret, particularly with reference to secret homosexuals in the closet.
    He's a closet case.
    • 1940, Walton Hall Smith, Liquor, the servant of man:
      I wonder if there is another in the world that could produce, among perfectly normal people, this strangest quirk in the agenda of liquordom, the closet drinker.

See also[edit]

Verb[edit]

closet (third-person singular simple present closets, present participle closeting, simple past and past participle closeted)

  1. (transitive) To shut away for private discussion.
    The ambassador has been closeted with the prime minister all afternoon. We're all worried what will be announced when they exit.
  2. (transitive) To put into a private place for a secret interview or interrogation.
    • (Can we date this quote?) Bancroft
      He was to call a new legislature, to closet its members.
    • (Can we date this quote?) Froude
      He had been closeted with De Quadra.
  3. (transitive) To shut up in, or as in, a closet for concealment or confinement.
    • 1784, William Cowper, Tirocinium, or A Review of Schools, [1]
      See what contempt is fallen on human kind; […] See Bedlam's closeted and handcuff'd charge / Surpass'd in frenzy by the mad at large;
    • 1992, Toni Morrison, Jazz, p. 55,
      […] she had to look twice over her shoulder when the Gay Northeasters and the City Belles strolled down Seventh Avenue, they were so handsome. But this envy-streaked pleasure Alice closeted, and never let the girl see how she admired those ready-for-bed-in-the-street clothes.

Derived terms[edit]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Oxford English Dictionary. "closet, n."

Anagrams[edit]

Old French[edit]

Etymology[edit]

clos +‎ -et.

Noun[edit]

closet m (oblique plural closez or closetz, nominative singular closez or closetz, nominative plural closet)

  1. small enclosed area, such as a field or a paddock

Romanian[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From English (water) closet.

Noun[edit]

closet n (plural closete)

  1. toilet, latrine, bathroom

See also[edit]

Spanish[edit]

Noun[edit]

closet m (plural closets)

  1. closet (the state of being secretly gay)

Welsh[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

Borrowing from English closet

Alternative forms[edit]

Noun[edit]

closet m (plural closetau)

  1. closet

Etymology 2[edit]

Inflected form of cloi.

Alternative forms[edit]

Verb[edit]

closet

  1. (colloquial) second-person singular conditional of cloi

Mutation[edit]

Welsh mutation
radical soft nasal aspirate
closet gloset nghloset chloset
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every
possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

References[edit]

  • “closet”, in Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru Online (in Welsh), University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh & Celtic Studies, 2014
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