drawer

American  

[drawr, draw-er] / drɔr, ˈdrɔ ər /

noun

drawers plural

1. a sliding, lidless, horizontal compartment, as in a piece of furniture, that may be drawn out in order to gain access to it.

2. (used with a plural verb) drawers, an undergarment, with legs, that covers the lower part of the body.

3. a person or thing that draws.

4. Finance. a person who draws an order, draft, or bill of exchange.

5. Metalworking. a person who operates a drawbench.

6. a tapster.

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drawer British  

/ ˈdrɔːə /

noun

1. a person or thing that draws, esp a draughtsman

2. a person who draws a cheque See draw

3. a person who draws up a commercial paper

4. archaic a person who draws beer, etc, in a bar

5. a boxlike container in a chest, table, etc, made for sliding in and out

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drawer Idioms  

1. see top drawer.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• predrawer
  noun
• redrawer
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• drawers
  plural

Etymology

Origin of drawer

1300–50, 1580–90 drawer for def. 1, 1560–70 drawer for def. 2; Middle English; see draw, -er ¹

Explanation

A drawer is a sliding compartment that fits into a dresser and is used for storage. You might keep socks in one drawer and t-shirts in another. Dressers have drawers, and so do other pieces of furniture, including desks, bureaus, and kitchen cabinets. Your kitchen drawers might be full of silverware, while the drawers in your office are a jumble of pens, paper clips, and Post-It notes. Drawer comes from the verb draw, from its "pull" meaning — the original idea of the word was that it's a container that's "drawn" out of a cabinet.

Example Sentences

Rare dinosaur bone, stuck in a drawer for decades.

From MarketWatch • Jun. 30, 2026

Elon Musk probably has a T-shirt in the back of a drawer emblazoned with the line.

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 29, 2026

Rolling your T-shirts may be an efficient way of getting them into a drawer but you won't be able to see them all when you're picking your outfit for the day.

From BBC • Jun. 28, 2026

Marc Hershberg has about 13 coupons stashed away in a drawer in his apartment.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 22, 2026

I moved out of the way so he could fiddle with the drawer.

From "Code Name Kingfisher" by Liz Kessler