dormitory
Americannoun
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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.
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a room containing a number of beds and serving as communal sleeping quarters, as in an institution, fraternity house, or passenger ship.
noun
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a large room, esp at a school or institution, containing several beds
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a building, esp at a college or camp, providing living and sleeping accommodation
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(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
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.
Vocabulary lists containing dormitory
The Vocabulary of College
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There's No Word Like Home
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Code Talker
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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.
The News also said subpoenas went to the Division of the Budget and to the Dormitory Authority, which oversees state funding programs that lawmakers can use to direct money to pet projects in their districts.
From New York Times • Mar. 27, 2022
The state Dormitory Authority, a construction agency, could help social equity businesses line up and build out locations.
From Seattle Times • Feb. 16, 2022
Even official daily case numbers for Covid-19 are split into three categories: "Imported", "Dormitory residents" and "Community".
From BBC • Sep. 23, 2021
Dormitory move-in is scheduled this weekend for the limited number of students who are allowed to live on campus.
From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 25, 2020
Back they went, to the Dormitory, greeting old friends—many of them larger in size now, their bellies growing as they waited—and taking their places again in the group.
From "Son" by Lois Lowry
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.
