cabinet
Pluralcabinets
- 1
- 2A cupboard, typically a unit with doors and shelves used to store dishes, food, or household items.
He reorganized every kitchen cabinet over the weekend.
The bathroom cabinets were stocked with fresh towels and soap.
Similarcupboard
- 3A group of advisors to a government or a business organization.
The governor's cabinet gathered to discuss the new transportation plan.
After the merger, the CEO formed a cabinet of senior executives to guide strategy.
Similarcouncil
Note
The advisers took their name from the room they met in. The word's history compares salon, another name for a gathering that began as the name of a room. A cabinet is defined by who is called in to advise, so a governor or a chief executive can have one as readily as a nation. It grew out of the old "private room" sense.
- 4In parliamentary and similar systems of government, the group of ministers who set government policy and oversee the departments of the executive branch.
The new prime minister announced her cabinet within a week of taking office.
Several cabinet ministers resigned over the trade agreement.
Similarministry, government
Note
The political sense is often capitalized when it names a particular government's body. In his Memoirs (1955), Harry S Truman writes that Lincoln "had a great deal of trouble with his Cabinet" because some members thought they, not the President, made policy. The word travels to presidential systems too. It combines freely: cabinet minister, cabinet meeting, cabinet-level.
- 5
- 6The upright housing of a coin-operated arcade game, containing its screen, controls, and hardware; also called a cab.
Collectors restore vintage cabinets and sell them to retro arcades.
The original cabinet featured hand-painted artwork on both side panels.
- 7A collection of art or ethnographic objects, such as one assembled by a collector or museum.
The university acquired a nineteenth-century cabinet of Pacific Island artifacts.
His cabinet grew to include prints, medals, and carved ivories.
Similarcollection
- 8Something that holds or supplies a store of valuable things.
The old professor's mind was a cabinet of forgotten lore.
Folk songs serve as a cabinet of a region's history and humor.
Similarstorehouse, treasury, repository, trove
Note
A figurative use that usually takes of and a list of what it holds. An 1844 "Notices of New Works" column praises The Travels of Marco Polo as "a perfect cabinet of faithful, valuable, and extensive information." The image is of things sorted and kept rather than merely piled up, so it suits knowledge, lore and memory better than sheer abundance.
- 9In Kentucky, an executive-branch agency headed by a member of the governor's cabinet.
The Transportation Cabinet announced repairs to several rural bridges.
He spent his career in the state's largest cabinet, overseeing health services.
Similardepartment, agency
Note
In Kentucky usage the word names the agency itself, not a circle of advisers. A Handbook for Gubernatorial Transition in Kentucky (2003) describes "a program cabinet system" of 14 program cabinets, each headed by a secretary appointed by the Governor. Each one is a countable, named unit, often capitalized. Outside Kentucky, readers will assume the body of ministers.
- 10A standard photograph format whose prints measure 3⅞ by 5½ inches.
The photographer mounted each cabinet on stiff card stock for display.
Holmes took a note of it. “One other question,” said he. “Was the photograph a cabinet?”
1891, Arthur Conan Doyle, A Scandal In BohemiaNote
A photographer's format, named for a size rather than a subject. In Arthur Conan Doyle's A Scandal in Bohemia (1891), Holmes asks "Was the photograph a cabinet?" and needs no further explanation. The word now belongs to the history of photography. In ordinary modern prose, say cabinet photograph, or readers will picture furniture.
- 11A milkshake, a blended drink of milk, ice cream, and syrup.
Every soda fountain in Providence once served cabinets to schoolkids after class.
He swears the best coffee cabinet in the state comes from a little stand in Pawtucket.
Similarmilkshake, shake, frappe
Note
This Rhode Island word can puzzle visitors: ask for a cabinet elsewhere and you will be shown cupboards. Linda Beaulieu's Providence & Rhode Island Cookbook (2012) calls the Newport Creamery's 32-ounce Awful Awful an "ultra-thick cabinet." Because it is dialectal, it reads as local color in writing. Outside the region, milkshake is the safe word.
Less common meanings
- 12A small room set apart for private use.
The duke withdrew to his cabinet to draft the reply in private.
Philip passed some hours every day in his father's cabinet.
1855, William H[ickling] Prescott, History of the Reign of Philip the SecondNote
Here the word means a room, not furniture. William H. Prescott's History of the Reign of Philip the Second says that "Philip passed some hours every day in his father's cabinet", meaning a private chamber for work. The sense is archaic and now turns up mainly in histories of courts and palaces. When writing it today, make the room clear from context.
- 13A hut, cottage, or other small, humble dwelling.
Hearken a while from thy green cabinet, / The rural song of careful Colinet.
1579, Immeritô [pseudonym; Edmund Spenser], “December. Ægloga Duodecima.”Note
This sense sits closest to the word's origin: cabin plus the diminutive -et, a little cabin, with French cabinet shaping the form. Edmund Spenser, writing as Immeritô in The Shepheardes Calender (1579), addresses a shepherd "from thy green cabinet", a leafy shelter. The sense is obsolete and appears only in older poetry. It should not be revived to describe a modern cottage.
Practice
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Origin
Formed from "cabin" plus the suffix "-et," influenced by French "cabinet." In the sense of a government group, it may be compared with "salon," which was likewise named for a room used for gathering.