Other forms: closets
A closet is the built-in space where clothes hang, in American English. A walk-in closet, clean out the closet, closet space.
British English says wardrobe for the furniture and built-in wardrobe for the fitted one, and closet in Britain now mostly survives in water closet and in figurative phrases. Come out of the closet means to reveal that you are gay, and in the closet means not having done so. A skeleton in the closet is British as a skeleton in the cupboard.
1nounclosetThe built-in space where clothes hang, in American use.
“She hung her coat in the closet by the front door.”
2adjectivekeptKept secret, of an identity or a liking.
“He's a closet romantic who secretly loves sad love songs.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
closet is a storage space.
Also accepted in games: wardrobe
Old French closet is a diminutive of clos, an enclosure, from Latin claudere, to shut. Close, enclosure and cloister come from the same shutting.
Proto-Indo-European
*(s)kleh₂w-
Latin
clausum
Old French
closet
Middle English
closet
English, today
closet
From Middle English closet, from Old French closet, from clos + -et, from Latin clausum. Equivalent to close + et, but generally applied in French solely to small open-air enclosures.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA