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• locker room
  locker room

  noun

  a room containing lockers, as in a gymnasium, factory, or school, for changing clothes and for the storage and safekeeping of personal belongings.
• locker-room
  locker-room

  adjective

  of, characteristic of, or suitable to conversation in a locker room; earthy or sexually explicit.

locker room

¹ American  

noun

locker rooms plural

1. a room containing lockers, as in a gymnasium, factory, or school, for changing clothes and for the storage and safekeeping of personal belongings.

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locker-room ² American  

[lok-er-room, -room] / ˈlɒk ərˌrum, -ˌrʊm /

adjective

1. of, characteristic of, or suitable to conversation in a locker room; earthy or sexually explicit.

   locker-room humor.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• locker rooms
  plural

Etymology

Origin of locker room¹

First recorded in 1890–95

Origin of locker-room²

First recorded in 1945–50

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

locker room locker-room

He does things his own way and there are times, like last week, when that makes him appear self-absorbed - a trait that does not usually play well in a golf locker room.

From BBC ● Jul. 20, 2026

"Those of us who have been in a locker room know what it means to be a good person," he said in an exclusive chat before the game against Belgium.

From BBC ● Jul. 10, 2026

Even in the locker room, they weren’t done.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 10, 2026

The 22-year-old was listed in the starting lineup before the game against the San Antonio Spurs, but when the game tipped off in front of an empty arena, Thiero was still in the locker room.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 7, 2026

I even thought how it’d be if what I told the kid in the locker room was true, that my pop really was dead.

From "We Were Here" by Matt De La Peña

Later, there were cheers and applause: standing near Shane in an otherwise-empty row of locker-room showers was the confident Ilya Rozanov, from Russia.

From BBC ● Jan. 17, 2026

It’s not just that the locker-room banter sometimes sounds like a faculty lounge at some competitive liberal arts college.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 8, 2025

He tweeted, “As an athlete, I’ve been in locker rooms my entire adult life and uh, that’s not locker-room talk.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 13, 2025

The book, published in 1974, had been long been criticized by some parents for its modest locker-room talk and anti-authority worldview — and enjoyed by the young in part for the same reasons.

From New York Times ● May 1, 2024

But the third daughter, who had become a feminist in the wake of her divorce, said she considered such locker-room entertainments offensive.

From "How the García Girls Lost Their Accents" by Julia Alvarez