cabin

Etymology

From Middle English caban, cabane, from Old French cabane, from Medieval Latin capanna (“a cabin”); see further etymology there. Doublet of cabana.

noun

1. (US) A small dwelling characteristic of the frontier, especially when built from logs with simple tools and not constructed by professional builders, but by those who meant to live in it.
   Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin.
   And that was how long we stayed in the cabin, pressed together, pulling the future out of each other, sweating and groaning and making sure each of us remembered. 1994, Michael Grumley, “Life Drawing”, in Violet Quill
2. (informal) A chalet or lodge, especially one that can hold large groups of people.
3. A private room on a ship.
   the captain's cabin:  Passengers shall remain in their cabins.
4. The interior of a boat, enclosed to create a small room, particularly for sleeping.
5. The passenger area of an airplane.
6. (travel, aviation) The section of a passenger plane having the same class of service.
7. (rail transport, informal) A signal box.
8. A small room; an enclosed place.
9. (India) A private office; particularly of a doctor, businessman, lawyer, or other professional.

verb

1. (transitive) To place in a cabin or other small space.
2. (by extension) To limit the scope of.
   There was a time when this Court’s precedents may have portended the kind of First Amendment liability for purely private property owners that the majority spends so much time rejecting. […] But the Court soon stanched that trend. See Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner, 407 U. S. 551, 561–567 (1972) (cabining Marsh and refusing to extend Logan Valley); Hudgens v. NLRB, 424 U. S. 507, 518 (1976) (making clear that “the rationale of Logan Valley did not survive” Lloyd). 2019, Sonia Sotomayor, dissenting, Manhattan Community Access Corp. v. Halleck, page 16, note 11
3. (intransitive, obsolete) To live in, or as if in, a cabin; to lodge.