indoors
Americanadverb
adverb
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
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Research led by Brandon Boor at Purdue University found that fragrance compounds released by both conventional cleaners and botanical essential oil-based products can rapidly react indoors and generate nanoparticles.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 26, 2026
A suggestion for schools: As summer vacation comes to a close, students will likely transition to spending most of their time indoors, looking at screens.
From Slate ● Sep. 9, 2026
I did make a film and it went out on Look East the following week, showing what we were all missing while we were having to stay indoors for a while.
From BBC ● Sep. 6, 2026
The haze can be smelled even indoors in the city of about 700,000 people.
From Barron's ● Sep. 6, 2026
Did you stay indoors where it was safe, or did you take to the streets with the other protesters?
From "Americanized" by Sara Saedi
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.
