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.
Children who spend more time indoors looking at screens and less time outside are more likely to develop myopia, also known as nearsightedness.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 26, 2026
A Scottish toddler with a rare genetic disorder that makes her "allergic" to the sun can play indoors without the curtains closed thanks to UV-resistant film installed on the windows.
From BBC ● Aug. 24, 2026
Bass said her Inside Safe program, which has moved more than 6,200 homeless people indoors, is one of the reasons Raman saw success in her district.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 20, 2026
He has even been given special dispensation to wear his hat indoors when he visits Mar-a-Lago, the private club owned by his friend Donald Trump.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 19, 2026
He stayed indoors, leaving his apartment only at night, switching taxis to elude anyone following him.
From "The Mona Lisa Vanishes" by Nicholas Day
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.
