latchkey
Americannoun
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:
I was a 1980s latchkey kid, and some of my favorite memories involved coming home from school, choosing something to heat up from the freezer and watching family sitcom reruns.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 15, 2026
"Dinosaurs were more like latchkey kids," Holtz said.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 27, 2026
The exchange arrived in Season1, Episode 2, as Meghan detailed how she grew up as an average American latchkey kid who ate a lot of fast food.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 23, 2025
It’s a lovely landing for a latchkey kid who grew up eating Jack in the Box, and we’re not mad at it.
From Salon ● Mar. 5, 2025
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
"Anyhow, they have latchkeys," retorted Ruthven Smith, with what for him might be considered gaiety of manner.
From The Second Latchkey by Williamson, A. M. (Alice Muriel)
If the people inside the house will run the place as we want it run, they may stay inside and we will keep the latchkeys in our pockets.
From The New Freedom A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People by Wilson, Woodrow
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 Bonner, Geraldine
This was the examination of the lock which the dead brothers' latchkeys had fitted.
From Lord John in New York by Williamson, A. M. (Alice Muriel)
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.
