Meaning of closet | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A small room within a house used to store clothing, food, or other household supplies.
2. Any private space, (particularly) bowers in the open air.
   obsolete
3. Any private or inner room, (particularly)
   archaic
4. Any private or inner room, (particularly):
   archaic, obsolete
5. A private room used by women to groom and dress themselves.
   archaic, obsolete
6. A private room used for prayer or other devotions.
   archaic
7. A place of (usually, fanciful) contemplation and theorizing.
   archaic, figuratively
8. The private residence or private council chamber of a monarch.
   archaic
9. A pew or side-chapel reserved for a monarch or other feudal lord.
   obsolete
10. A private cabinet, (particularly):
    obsolete
11. One used to store valuables.
    obsolete
12. One used to store curiosities.
    archaic
13. A secret or hiding place, (particularly) the hiding place in English idioms such as in the closet and skeleton in the closet.
    figuratively
14. Clipping of closet case.
    abbreviation, alt-of, clipping, slang, uncommon
15. Any small room or side room.
    Ireland, Philippines, Scotland, US
16. One intended for storing clothes or bedclothes.
    Ireland, Philippines, Scotland, US
17. Clipping of closet of ease, (later, UK) clipping of water closet: a room containing a toilet.
    Ireland, Scotland, abbreviation, alt-of, clipping, obsolete
18. An ordinary similar to a bar but half as broad.
19. A sewer.
    Scotland, obsolete
20. A state or condition of secrecy, privacy, or obscurity.
21. The state of having one's sexual orientation a secret.
22. A compendium of knowledge, possibly from closet as a room?
    archaic

Equivalents

Examples

“A Closet full of shelves... it... should therefore be called a Cupboard rather than a Closet.”

“She came in now, but to the closet; from it she took a simple skirt and blouse. Picking up her underclothing she departed, obviously to dress somewhere else.”

“A slepe hym toke / In hys closet.”

“VVhen come to the place vvhere vve all vvere to dine, / (A chair-lumber'd Cloſet, juſt tvvelve feet by nine) / My friend bid me vvelcome, but ſtruck me quite dumb / VVith tidings that Johnson and Burke coud not come: […]”

“Closet for a lady to make her redy in, chamberette.”

“When thou prayest, enter into thy closet.”

“[A]broad and at home, at their Tables or in their Closets […]”

“Chaplayneȝ to þe chapeles chosen þe gate... / Þe lorde loutes þerto, & þe lady als, / In-to a comly closet coyntly ho entreȝ.”

“Closet, chapelle.”

“But heere's a Parchment... I found it in his Closset, 'tis his Will.”

“Mr. Tradescant and his wife told me they had been long considering upon whom to bestow their closet of curiosities when they died.”

“The late House of Commons have... seiz'd Closets and Writings without Information.”

“Went the sonne of god oute of the pryuy closet of the maydens wombe.”

“The closet can be a scary place for a gay teenager.”

“He's so far in the closet, he can see Narnia.”

“A Closset is the halfe of the Barre, and tenne of them maie be borne in one fielde.”

“6 o'clock TV news specials concerning a famous Hollywood movie star who has been diagnosed with [AIDS]. It had to happen sooner or later. (In fact it probably has happened sooner, but the tenor of the times and the closets of the people were no doubt more secure.)”

CEFR level