closet

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A cabinet or enclosed recess for linens, household supplies, or clothing.
2. n. A small private chamber, as for study or prayer.
3. n. A water closet; a toilet.
4. n. A state of secrecy or cautious privacy: Two days before the election, the candidate suddenly came out of the closet and denounced the proposed law.
5. v. To enclose or shut up in a private room, as for discussion: closeted themselves with their attorneys.
6. adj. Private; confidential: closet information.
7. adj. Being so or engaging only in private; secret: a closet proponent of a tax increase; a closet alcoholic.
8. adj. Based on theory and speculation rather than practice.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A small room or apartment for retirement; any room for privacy; a small supplementary apartment communicating with another, as a dressing-room with a bedroom; hence, in religious literature, the place or habit of devotional seclusion.
2. n. A small side room or inclosed recess for storing utensils, clothing, provisions, curiosities, etc.
3. n. A bedroom.
4. n. A secret place; a place for the storing of precious things.
5. n. An inclosed or inside part.
6. n. In heraldry, a diminutive of the bar, one half of its width.
7. Restricted, as to a closet; pertaining to or done in privacy or seclusion; suitable to or designed for private consideration or use; private; secluded: as, a closet conference or intrigue; closet reflections; a closet book or picture.
8. Intimate; sharing one's privacy.
9. Fitted only for seclusion or the privacy of a scholar; not adapted to the conditions of a practical life; merely theoretical; unpractical: as, a closet philosopher or theory.
10. To inclose or shut up, as in a closet or close compartment.
11. To admit into or as into a closet, as for concealment or for private and confidential or clandestine consultation: used chiefly in the past participle.

Wiktionary

1. n. A piece of furniture or a cabinet in which clothes or household supplies may be stored.
2. n. A small private chamber.
3. n. A toilet; a water closet.
4. n. figuratively The imagined closet in idioms such as in the closet or skeleton in the closet, a place to keep things hidden.
5. adj. Secret.
6. v. transitive To shut away for private discussion.
7. v. transitive To put into a private place for a secret interview or interrogation.
8. v. transitive To shut up in, or as in, a closet for concealment or confinement.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A small room or apartment for retirement; a room for privacy.
2. n. A small apartment, or recess in the side of a room, for household utensils, clothing, etc.
3. v. rare To shut up in, or as in, a closet; to conceal.
4. v. To make into a closet for a secret interview.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. confine to a small space, as for intensive work
2. n. a tall piece of furniture that provides storage space for clothes; has a door and rails or hooks for hanging clothes
3. n. a toilet in Britain
4. n. a small private room for study or prayer
5. n. a small room (or recess) or cabinet used for storage space