Closet Meaning
/ˈklɒzɪt/Definition, CEFR level B2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounA small room within a house used to store clothing, food, or other household supplies.
nounAny private space, (particularly) bowers in the open air.
Sentence Examples
The burglar shut the child in the closet.
There is a skeleton in every closet.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The child hid inside the ____ to escape the noisy birthday party.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
She organized her winter clothes and hung them neatly in the large bedroom ____.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English closet, from Old French closet, from clos (“private space”) + -et (diminutive suffix), from Latin clausum. Equivalent to close + -et, but generally applied in French solely to small open-air enclosures.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"A Closet full of shelves... it... should therefore be called a Cupboard rather than a Closet."
— 1799 May 17, Jane Austen, letter
"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."
— 1964, Philip K. Dick, “NINE”, in Clans of the Alphane Moon, United States: Ace Books, →OCLC; republished London: HarperCollinsPublishers, 1996, →ISBN, page 112:
"A slepe hym toke / In hys closet."
— c. 1370, Robert Cicyle, l. 57 f:
"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: […]"
— 1765, [Oliver] Goldsmith, The Haunch of Venison, a Poetical Epistle to Lord Clare, Dublin: […] W. Whitestone, […], published 1776, →OCLC, page 9:
"Closet for a lady to make her redy in, chamberette."
— 1530, John Palsgrave, Lesclarcissement, page 206:
Explore More B2 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The child hid inside the ____ to escape the noisy birthday party.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
She organized her winter clothes and hung them neatly in the large bedroom ____.