locket
Americannoun
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a small case for a miniature portrait, a lock of hair, or other keepsake, usually worn on a necklace.
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the uppermost mount of a scabbard.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of locket
1325–75; Middle English lokat cross-bar in a framework < Anglo-French loquet, diminutive of loc latch < Middle English. See lock 1, -et
Explanation
A locket is a small piece of jewelry that's worn on a necklace and opens to reveal a small photograph or memento inside. Your grandmother's silver locket might not be worth a lot of money, but it probably has a lot of sentimental value to you. Lockets are usually round, oval, or heart-shaped, snapping open and closed and containing a picture of a loved one or a favorite pet, or — in the old days — a lock of someone's hair. These little cases aren't named for hair locks, though, but instead get their name from the Old French loquet, "door-handle" or "latch," for the way their covers move on a hinge and close securely, like a door.
Vocabulary lists containing locket
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.
Partridge Jewellers said the locket will be returned to Fabergé, Radio NZ reported.
From BBC • Dec. 4, 2025
But Mira loves it anyway and also has a special gift for Violet — a locket with a violet inside.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 27, 2025
“In every photo, he just radiated with that smile,” his godmother Monique Vasquez said while wearing a locket with the younger Saldaña’s ashes.
From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 25, 2024
I was chatting this week with some colleagues about the locket, about what animates someone to buy a pricey piece of jewelry that’s being sold as a merchandise tie-in for a movie.
From New York Times • Nov. 11, 2023
He pulled out Hagrid’s purse and took out the fake Horcrux, the substitute locket in which Regulus had placed the note to Voldemort.
From "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by J.K. Rowling
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.
