refrigerator
Americannoun
-
a box, room, or cabinet in which food, drink, etc., are kept cool by means of ice or mechanical refrigeration.
-
the part of a distilling apparatus that cools the volatile material, causing it to condense; condenser; rectifier.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of refrigerator
First recorded in 1605–15; refrigerate + -or 2
Explanation
A refrigerator is a kitchen appliance where you can store your perishable food at a cool temperature. You should store your milk and meat in the refrigerator to keep them from spoiling. The term refrigerator is often shortened to fridge, and because of this, people often mistakenly try to spell refrigerator with a d. Refrigerators come in all sizes, from a small cube that is often used in college dorm rooms by students trying to keep a six-pack of soda cool, to a huge walk-in refrigerator that might be used at a restaurant to cool all the ingredients for the week's meals.
Vocabulary lists containing refrigerator
Cormac McCarthy's "The Road"
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Unit 9
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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.
Schultheiss said he had no qualms about purchasing Chinese-made products and owns a Midea refrigerator.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jul. 2, 2026
Have you ever fallen victim to a lone bag of rotisserie chicken, left forgotten for weeks in the very back of your refrigerator?
From Salon • Jun. 29, 2026
To achieve this temperature, researchers use a He4-He3 dilution refrigerator similar to those employed in quantum computing systems.
From Science Daily • Jun. 24, 2026
They gave me a refrigerator to store all the food, because I wasn’t supposed to have it out in the gallery space.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 17, 2026
In the dirty gray light, Barry saw jagged hunks of wood, shattered glass, a twisted bicycle, a refrigerator, a stuffed penguin, a mattress covered with a pink blanket.
From "I Survived Hurricane Katrina, 2005" by Lauren Tarshis
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.
