dormitory

American  

[dawr-mi-tawr-ee, -tohr-ee] / ˈdɔr mɪˌtɔr i, -ˌtoʊr i /

noun

• dormitories
  plural

1. a building, as at a college, containing a number of private or semiprivate rooms for residents, usually along with common bathroom facilities and recreation areas.

2. a room containing a number of beds and serving as communal sleeping quarters, as in an institution, fraternity house, or passenger ship.

---

dormitory British  

/ -trɪ, ˈdɔːmɪtərɪ /

noun

1. a large room, esp at a school or institution, containing several beds

2. a building, esp at a college or camp, providing living and sleeping accommodation

3. (modifier) denoting or relating to an area from which most of the residents commute to work (esp in the phrase dormitory suburb )

---

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• dormitories
  plural

Etymology

Origin of dormitory

1475–85; < Latin dormītōrium bedroom, equivalent to dormī ( re ) to sleep + -tōrium -tory ²

Explanation

A dormitory is a building at a boarding school, college, or university where students live. Many students have roommates in a dormitory, and sometimes those roommates put up really cheesy posters of shirtless guys leaning on cars. The word dormitory is from the Latin dormitorium for "sleeping place," and if you keep going back you get to dormire for "to sleep." A dormitory is where students who live at school sleep — well, it’s where their beds are anyway. Often the first time kids sleep away at school is when they go to college. There are often different dorms for freshman and older students. Dormitories are also called dorms, residence halls, and student residences.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

dormitory dormitories

Detainees in his dormitory submitted a grievance about commissary prices, Parada Calderon said.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 1, 2026

Kenya has a long history of school fires - just two years ago at least 21 people died in a dormitory fire in central Kenya.

From BBC ● Jun. 24, 2026

The boy's bed was empty when his roommates woke up in a dormitory at the seaside camp in Saint-Brevin-les-Pins.

From Barron's ● Jun. 4, 2026

One dormitory had one toilet for 31 people, they found.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 28, 2026

Then, as quickly as we could for the press of people, Betsie and I made our way to the rear of the dormitory room where we held our worship “service.”

From "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom

One chimpanzee, Yvan, eventually picked up the crystal and deliberately carried it back to the dormitories.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 15, 2026

Education Minister Julius Ogamba said preliminary findings indicated that there had been multiple breaches of safety measures at Utumishi Girls' School, including overcrowding in dormitories and a locked exit door.

From BBC ● Jun. 24, 2026

For now, he said, families are crowded into a block of 20 buildings with one-room student dormitories roughly six miles away from the camp.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 24, 2025

Its gymnasium and dormitories need repairs and upgrades.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 28, 2025

‘No, ma’am. But the bit about the girls and boys disappearing from their dormitories, you dreamt it so clearly and then it actually happened. That’s why I came over all queer, ma’am.’

From "The BFG" by Roald Dahl

Related Words

• bedroom
• dorm
• dorm room