recess

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A temporary cessation of the customary activities of an engagement, occupation, or pursuit.
2. n. The period of such cessation. See Synonyms at pause.
3. n. A remote, secret, or secluded place. Often used in the plural.
4. n. An indentation or small hollow.
5. n. An alcove.
6. v. To place in a recess.
7. v. To create or fashion a recess in: recessed a portion of the wall.
8. v. To suspend for a recess: The committee chair recessed the hearings.
9. v. To take a recess: The investigators recessed for lunch.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The act of receding, or going back or away; withdrawal; retirement; recession.
2. n. A state of being withdrawn or retired; seclusion; privacy.
3. n. A time of withdrawal or retirement; an interval of release from occupation; specifically, a period of relief from attendance, as of a school, a jury, a legislative body, or other assembly; a temporary dismissal.
4. n. A place of retirement or seclusion; a remote or secret spot or situation; a nook; hence, a hidden or abstruse part of anything: as, the recesses of a forest; the recesses of philosophy.
5. n. A receding space or inward indentation or depression in a line of continuity; a niche, alcove, or the like: as, a recess in a room for a window or a bed; a recess in a wall or the side of a hill. See cut under ambry.
6. n. A treaty, law, decree, or contract embodying the results of a negotiation; especially, a decree or law promulgated by tlie Diet of the old German empire, or by that of the Hanseatic League.
7. n. In botany, a sinus of a lobed leaf.
8. n. In anatomy and zoology, a receding or hollowedout part; a depression or sinus; a recessus.
9. n. Synonyms Prorogation, Dissolution, etc. (see adjournment), intermission, respite.
10. n. Retreat, nook, corner.
11. To make a recess in; form with a space sunk beyond the general surface: as, to recess a wall.
12. To place in a recess; form as a recess; make a recess of or for; hence, to conceal in or as if in a recess.
13. To take a recess; adjourn or separate for a short time: as, the convention recessed till the afternoon.

Wiktionary

1. n. countable or uncountable A break, pause or vacation.
2. n. An inset, hole, space or opening.
3. n. US A time of play, usually, on a playground.
4. n. A decree of the imperial diet of the old German empire.
5. v. To inset into something, or to recede.
6. v. intransitive To take or declare a break.
7. v. transitive, informal To appoint, with a recess appointment.
8. adj. obsolete, rare Remote, distant (in time or place).

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A withdrawing or retiring; a moving back; retreat.
2. n. The state of being withdrawn; seclusion; privacy.
3. n. Remission or suspension of business or procedure; intermission, as of a legislative body, court, or school.
4. n. Part of a room formed by the receding of the wall, as an alcove, niche, etc.
5. n. A place of retirement, retreat, secrecy, or seclusion.
6. n. Secret or abstruse part.
7. n. (Bot. & Zoöl.) A sinus.
8. v. To make a recess in.
9. n. A decree of the imperial diet of the old German empire.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a small concavity
2. n. an arm off of a larger body of water (often between rocky headlands)
3. v. make a recess in
4. n. an enclosure that is set back or indented
5. v. put into a recess
6. n. a pause from doing something (as work)
7. v. close at the end of a session
8. n. a state of abeyance or suspended business