indoors

American  

[in-dawrz, -dohrz] / ɪnˈdɔrz, -ˈdoʊrz /

adverb

1. in or into a house or building.

   We stayed indoors during the storm.

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indoors British  

/ ˌɪnˈdɔːz /

adverb

1. (postpositive) inside or into a house or other building

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Etymology

Origin of indoors

1780–90; indoor + -s 1

Explanation

If you're indoors, you're inside a house or other building. On the hottest, most sweltering summer days, you might decide to stay indoors where it's cool. During a typical school day, elementary school students spend most of their time indoors, reading, writing, doing math, singing songs, and painting pictures. When they leave the indoors and go outside for recess, you can say they're outdoors. Indoors, first used around 1800 (sometimes attributed to George Washington), comes from indoor, a shortened form of within door.

Example Sentences

Unseeded Frenchman Ugo Humbert toppled top seed Taylor Fritz 6-3, 6-4 in the Swiss Indoors last 16 on Thursday.

From Barron's • Oct. 23, 2025

Indoors, the environment remains cooler and still, free from elements such as whipping winds or scorching sun.

From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 11, 2025

She will be one of Britain's medal hopes at next week's European Indoor Athletics Championships, one year after winning her first major title at the World Indoors in Glasgow.

From BBC • Feb. 28, 2025

Indoors, people everywhere are assessing interior wind and water damage and wearily calculating how much time and money it will take to get their lives back to where they were before the storm.

From Slate • Oct. 21, 2024

Indoors it was dark—the wick, burning in its shallow saucer of oil, threw only a dim wavering light—but outside the land glimmered, sometimes pale and sometimes vivid, in the flicker of lightning.

From "Nectar in a Sieve" by Kamala Markandaya