enclosure
Americannoun
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enclosures
plural
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something that encloses, as a fence or wall.
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something that is enclosed in or along with something else, as a photograph sent in a letter.
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an area, such as a plot of ground or an indoor surface, surrounded by a fence, rope, or other barrier.
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the separation and appropriation of land by means of a fence.
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an act or instance of enclosing.
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the state of being enclosed.
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Roman Catholic Church. the part of a monastery or convent canonically separated or restricted as the living quarters of the religious, which a person may leave only with special permission or gain entrance to by special dispensation.
noun
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the act of enclosing or state of being enclosed
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a region or area enclosed by or as if by a fence
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the act of appropriating land, esp common land, by putting a hedge or other barrier around it
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history such acts as were carried out at various periods in England, esp between the 12th and 14th centuries and finally in the 18th and 19th centuries
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a fence, wall, etc, that serves to enclose
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something, esp a supporting document, enclosed within an envelope or wrapper, esp together with a letter
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a section of a sports ground, racecourse, etc, allotted to certain spectators
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of enclosure
Explanation
An enclosure is something that closes you in, like a pen or a cage. When a cobra disappeared from an enclosure at the Bronx Zoo, the entire Reptile House had to be shut down until the snake was found. An enclosure can also be something that's included in an envelope with a cover letter of some sort. If you're sending a letter to your literary agent and you’re including a few pages of your latest limericks, you might put "enc." at the bottom of the letter, to indicate that you've included something extra in the envelope — an enclosure.
Vocabulary lists containing enclosure
Case Closed: Clud, Clus
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List 3
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The Industrial Revolution - Middle School and High School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The pair had been in their enclosure in the downstairs living room as the fire tore through the property.
From BBC ● Sep. 11, 2026
A three-year-old boy who was seriously injured in a crocodile enclosure has been discharged from hospital and is settling back in at home, his family has said.
From BBC ● Aug. 25, 2026
Thursday and put down the winning bid, then took the pig to the sanctuary, where he was fed a salad and put in a 24-foot-by-24-foot enclosure next to another pig the sanctuary adopted named “Wiener.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 21, 2026
The ceremony took place behind an enclosure in a meadow where concertgoers streamed by, sandwiched between a space for “Freak Nature Puppets” and a pastry booth.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026
Before he followed Israel into the room, Bat turned to see Mom standing by the skunk enclosure.
From "A Boy Called Bat" by Elana K. Arnold
"It's like Big Brother for cats", she says of the 72 cameras being used to watch over the animals in their enclosures.
From BBC ● Sep. 22, 2026
Artificial-intelligence systems have been displaying some eye-opening new abilities in recent weeks: breaking out of their enclosures, hacking other companies, lying to people.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026
The region's Guigang Zoo asked the public for help on Wednesday to find at least 100 animals that had escaped after their enclosures were damaged, including alpacas, miniature pigs, and zebras.
From Barron's ● Jul. 9, 2026
The organisation said resident male rusty-spotted cat Kuda would be joined by a female later in 2026 at the enclosures under the breeding scheme.
From BBC ● Jun. 4, 2026
He worked on the rope-making crew in the compound next to Phillips and each noon they managed to exchange a few words through the barbed wire separating the two enclosures.
From "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
