closet

Etymology

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

noun

1. A small room within a house used to store clothing, food, or other household supplies.
   A Closet full of shelves... it... should therefore be called a Cupboard rather than a Closet. 1799 May 17, Jane Austen, letter
2. (obsolete) Any private space, (particularly) bowers in the open air.
   A slepe hym toke / In hys closet. c. 1370, Robert Cicyle, l. 57 f
3. (now rare) Any private or inner room, (particularly):
   1. (obsolete) A private room used by women to groom and dress themselves.
      Closet for a lady to make her redy in, chamberette. 1530, John Palsgrave, Lesclarcissement, page 206
   2. (archaic) A private room used for prayer or other devotions.
   3. (figurative, archaic) A place of (usually, fanciful) contemplation and theorizing.
   4. (archaic) The private residence or private council chamber of a monarch.
4. (obsolete) A pew or side-chapel reserved for a monarch or other feudal lord.
   Chaplayneȝ to þe chapeles chosen þe gate... / Þe lorde loutes þerto, & þe lady als, / In-to a comly closet coyntly ho entreȝ. c. 1390, Sir Gawain & the Green Knight, §I, 934 ff.
   Closet, chapelle. 1530, John Palsgrave, Lesclarcissement, page 206
5. A private cabinet, (particularly):
   1. (obsolete) One used to store valuables.
   2. (archaic) One used to store curiosities.
      Mr. Tradescant and his wife told me they had been long considering upon whom to bestow their closet of curiosities when they died. 1659, Elias Ashmole, Diary, page 326
      The late House of Commons have... seiz'd Closets and Writings without Information. 1681, Marquis of Halifax, Seasonable Addresses to the Houses of Parliament in Concise Succession, page 10
   3. (figurative) A secret or hiding place, (particularly) the hiding place in English idioms such as in the closet and skeleton in the closet.
      Went the sonne of god oute of the pryuy closet of the maydens wombe. 1530, chapter II, in Myroure of Oure Ladye, page 233
      The closet can be a scary place for a gay teenager.
      He's so far in the closet, he can see Narnia.
   4. (slang, uncommon) Clipping of closet case.
6. (now chiefly Scotland, Ireland) Any small room or side-room, (particularly):
   1. (US, Philippines) One intended for storing clothes or bedclothes.
   2. (obsolete) Clipping of closet of ease, (later, UK) clipping of water closet: a room containing a toilet.
7. (heraldry) An ordinary similar to a bar but half as broad.
   Coordinate term: barrulet
   A Closset is the halfe of the Barre, and tenne of them maie be borne in one fielde. 1572, J. Bossewell, Wks. Armorie, page 12
8. (Scotland, obsolete) A sewer.
9. A state or condition of secrecy, privacy, or obscurity.

adj

1. (obsolete) Private.
2. Closeted, secret (especially with reference to gay people who are in the closet).
   He's a closet case.
   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. 1940, Walton Hall Smith, Ferdinand Christian Helwig, Liquor, the servant of man
3. Denoting anything kept a secret or private.

verb

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.
3. (transitive) To shut up in, or as in, a closet for concealment or confinement.
   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; 1784, William Cowper, Tirocinium, or A Review of Schools
   […] 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. 1992, Toni Morrison, Jazz, page 55