latchkey
Americannoun
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latchkeys
plural
noun
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a key for an outside door or gate, esp one that lifts a latch
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a supposed freedom from restrictions
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( as modifier )
a latchkey existence
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Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of latchkey
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.
See Examples For:
Since I was a latchkey kid, I needed to find something else to do after school.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 14, 2026
"Dinosaurs were more like latchkey kids," Holtz said.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 27, 2026
I view that album in particular very much within the realm of a child who grows up in a latchkey situation.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 24, 2025
Most of Perry's upbringing was in Ottawa, Canada, but he said he was a "latchkey kid" because his mother's job "just meant I spent a great deal of time alone".
From BBC ● Oct. 29, 2023
After-school junk food is another fundamental right of the latchkey child.
From "When You Reach Me" by Rebecca Stead
Buzzing around them are children who frolic unsupervised far into the night, wearing latchkeys on strings around their necks because there is nobody at home to care for them.
From Time Magazine Archive
As they were not on a main road, the door was not kept latched, and so they had no latchkeys.
From A City Schoolgirl And Her Friends by May Baldwin
There are two latchkeys, of which John used to keep one and I the other.
From The Vanishing Man by R. Austin (Richard Austin) Freeman
Watches and latchkeys are attached to a key chain and hidden in the trousers pocket.
From The Complete Bachelor Manners for Men by Walter Germain
There I was staring distracted into it and scrabbling round in the inside, pulling out handkerchiefs and samples and buttons and latchkeys.
From The Black Eagle Mystery by Geraldine Bonner
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.
