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.
"People were staying indoors, so it was eerie, and very sad."
From BBC ● Jul. 28, 2026
Will people start wearing N95 masks indoors, or have breathing apparatuses hooked up to their chests like fighter pilots?
From Salon ● Jul. 19, 2026
A concert was a concert and audiences of yore dressed for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, indoors or out.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 16, 2026
Toronto had the worst air quality of any major city in the world on Wednesday, the Swiss firm IQAir said, as Canadian authorities urged people to stay indoors.
From Barron's ● Jul. 15, 2026
“People call them Eichlers, after Joseph Eichler, the architect. He built spaces that felt like you could be indoors and outdoors at the same time.”
From "The House That Lou Built" by Mae Respicio
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.
