enclosure

Etymology

From Middle English enclosure, from Old French enclosure, from enclore, from Latin inclūdere, inclūdō, from in- (“in”) + claudō (“to shut”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kleh₂u- (“key, hook, nail”). Alike to inclusion.

noun

1. (countable) Something enclosed, i.e. inserted into a letter or similar package.
   There was an enclosure with the letter — a photo.
2. (uncountable) The act of enclosing, i.e. the insertion or inclusion of an item in a letter or package.
   The enclosure of a photo with your letter is appreciated.
3. (countable) An area, domain, or amount of something partially or entirely enclosed by barriers.
   He faced punishment for creating the fenced enclosure in a public park.
   The glass enclosure holds the mercury vapor.
   The winning horse was first into the unsaddling enclosure.
4. (uncountable) The act of separating and surrounding an area, domain, or amount of something with a barrier.
   The enclosure of public land is against the law.
   The experiment requires the enclosure of mercury vapor in a glass tube.
   At first, untrained horses resist enclosure.
5. (uncountable, by extension) The act of restricting access to ideas, works of art or technologies using patents or intellectual property laws.
   Copyright, from day one, was designed to be both an impediment and an incentive, a mechanism of enclosure (one that prevented the unlicensed printing of texts, thereby limiting access) and a catalyst of sorts, a structure to stimulate the production of literary goods by rewarding writers and publishers for their labor. 2014, Astra Taylor, chapter 5, in The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age, Henry Holt and Company
   The commons evokes resistance to “enclosure” in all its forms, whether in its early proto-capitalist form of fencing in commonly shared land, or in its contemporary forms of marshalling judicial restraints such as “patent” and “intellectual property” to police the ownership of ideas. 2019, Robert Stam, World Literature, Transnational Cinema, and Global Media, Routledge
6. (uncountable, British History) The post-feudal process of subdivision of common lands for individual ownership.
   Strip-farming disappeared after enclosure.
7. (religion) The area of a convent, monastery, etc where access is restricted to community members.