pigeonhole
Americannoun
-
one of a series of small, open compartments, as in a desk, cabinet, or the like, used for filing or sorting papers, letters, etc.
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a hole or recess, or one of a series of recesses, for pigeons to nest in.
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Also called white hole. Also called pigeon hole,. Printing. white space created by setting words or lines too far apart.
verb (used with object)
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pigeonholes,
present (3rd person singular)
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pigeonholed,
past participle, past
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pigeonholing
present participle
-
to assign to a definite place or to definite places in some orderly system.
to pigeonhole new ideas.
- Synonyms:
- catalog, categorize
-
to lay aside for use or reference at some later, indefinite time.
We must pigeonhole this excellent plan until the time is ripe.
- Synonyms:
- file
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to put aside for the present, especially with the intention of ignoring or forgetting, often indefinitely.
to pigeonhole an unwanted invitation.
-
to place in or as if in a pigeonhole or pigeonholes.
to pigeonhole papers.
-
to fit or provide with pigeonholes.
The desk must be pigeonholed for all my papers.
noun
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a small compartment for papers, letters, etc, as in a bureau
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a hole or recess in a dovecote for pigeons to nest in
-
informal a category or classification
verb
-
to put aside or defer
-
to classify or categorize, esp in a rigid manner
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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pigeonholesimple
-
pigeonholessimple
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have pigeonholedperfect
-
has pigeonholedperfect
-
am pigeonholingprogressive
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are pigeonholingprogressive
-
is pigeonholingprogressive
-
have been pigeonholingperfect progressive
-
has been pigeonholingperfect progressive
Past
-
pigeonholedsimple
-
had pigeonholedperfect
-
was pigeonholingprogressive
-
were pigeonholingprogressive
-
had been pigeonholingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of pigeonhole
Explanation
A pigeonhole is a small nesting area for a pigeon, or a similarly cozy compartment or alcove. If you feel like you're stuck in a restrictive category — only thought of as someone's sister, for example — that's another kind of pigeonhole. A cubbyhole in your desk is one kind of pigeonhole, and the little box where a domesticated pigeon sleeps is another. These original meanings date from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. By the 1870s, pigeonhole had also come to mean "an overly simplistic or restrictive category," and also "to assign someone to a rigid category." So when you assume that a circus clown couldn't also be a brilliant mathematician, you have pigeonholed him.
Vocabulary lists containing pigeonhole
The Legislative Branch, Sections 4–6
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Accountable
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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:
In nonfiction, authors consider how we define wild places, how we pigeonhole the aging, and how languages live or die.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 2, 2026
To see how we’ve evolved from the era of pigeonhole desks to today’s Zoom calls, it’s worth taking a close look at 10 landmark inventions.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 15, 2025
"Aerospace has something for people with different backgrounds, different qualifications, there's so much variety. So don't pigeonhole yourself, there really is something for everyone here."
From BBC ● Jul. 18, 2025
We wanted to cover a wide range of genres and a wide range of eras because we didn't want to pigeonhole the movie that it was going to be all boy band pop music.
From Salon ● Jun. 2, 2024
We waited for Mr. Lias at the drug store because Cold Sassy’s post office was in there, a big pigeonhole desk over where the telephone central switchboard used to be.
From "Cold Sassy Tree" by Olive Ann Burns
Somewhere along the way if you're a young actor coming up, you can bet there are pigeonholes for everyone.
From Salon ● Aug. 24, 2024
From left: Withings ScanWatch, Fossil Hybrid HR, Skagen Jorn, Fossil Gen 6 Hybrid What bothers me about the Stella design is how it somewhat pigeonholes your style.
From The Verge ● Jul. 16, 2022
Everything that’s wrong with this place is the way we put everyone in pigeonholes.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 8, 2020
“It pigeonholes you. I remember having a conversation with my dad in ’74.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 13, 2019
She put all of her papers neatly in the pigeonholes of her desk, and when Joe brought the tea tray she had him put it beside her bed.
From "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck
But one gets the sense that Thatcher’s worried about being pigeonholed.
From Salon ● Aug. 17, 2026
If he was implying that the money was specifically pigeonholed for an accelerated retirement of government securities, that’s untrue.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2026
The American actor says she is "always" being pigeonholed into a certain role due to her age but she "resists at every turn".
From BBC ● Jan. 28, 2026
With a roughed-up face that defied Hollywood glamour, Hackman helped carve a path for unconventional leading men who in another era might have been pigeonholed as side characters.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 23, 2025
Second, developmental sequences are not invariant, so examples pigeonholed under the same stage are inevitably heterogeneous.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
Many of the offers centered on capitalizing on their family names and pigeonholing them into commercial pop or hip-hop, which they tried and ultimately disliked.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 17, 2026
Raphael Benza, head of Johannesburg-based record label Vth Season, says the very name Best African Performance goes against pigeonholing.
From BBC ● Feb. 1, 2025
He no longer felt like the “Baby” singer everyone was so hellbent on pigeonholing him as.
From Salon ● Dec. 21, 2024
I was intrigued then when the pollster YouGuv, in combination with The Economist magazine, decided to take pigeonholing to a whole different level.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 13, 2024
It offers no nifty formulas for pigeonholing people or decoding folkways and manners.
From "Class Matters" by The New York Times
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.
