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.

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dormitory British  

/ ˈdɔːmɪtərɪ, -trɪ /

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 )

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• dormitories
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of dormitory

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

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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

The contestants stay in a candy-themed dormitory, where they will whisper their thoughts, strategic and emotional.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 23, 2026

Sheets, backpacks, and outstretched bodies transform the emblematic seafront promenade into an open-air dormitory for a few hours.

From Barron's ● Aug. 14, 2026

A student in Huanggang told the BBC that he had thought it was "just an ordinary thunderstorm", until he saw "things started flying through the air outside" the dormitory window.

From BBC ● Jul. 8, 2026

This subterranean dormitory is run by Halyna Mysnyk, a 44-year-old subway employee in a red hat and a navy fleece.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 3, 2026

The Temple of Lkossa housed worship halls, a library, studies, even a dormitory where candidates and unmarried Sons of the Six slept when off duty.

From "Beasts of Prey" by Ayana Gray

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

From Science Daily ● Jul. 15, 2026

The new rules do not apply to notorious "coffin homes", cubicles stacked on top of each other like bunk beds in shabby dormitories.

From Barron's ● May 28, 2026

And accommodation at BAS facilities is shared dormitories.

From BBC ● Feb. 22, 2026

Two Moroccan women chose to be deported from Cameroon to their home country, leaving 15 migrants spending their days inside dormitories, some in tears, according to lawyers and local activists.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 20, 2026

The arch-topped windows of the dormitories showed like yellow cutouts.

From "Homecoming" by Cynthia Voigt

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Related Words

• bedroom
• dorm
• dorm room

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