indoors

1. 1
   adverb

   In or into a building rather than out in the open air.

   When the storm hit, everyone hurried indoors.

   She works indoors all week and misses the sunlight by Friday.

   Similarinside

   Oppositeoutdoors, outside

   Note

   Two words fused into one: in plus doors, a later form of the older phrase within doors. The final -s is the plural noun doors, not an adverb ending. The word covers both resting and moving (stay indoors, go indoors) and takes no preposition before it. It does not compare: a thing is indoors or it is not, never more indoors.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   Enclosed space inside a building or buildings, as opposed to the open air outside.

   He traded the indoors for a month of hiking in the mountains.

   A long, gray winter kept them confined to the indoors for weeks.

   Oppositeoutdoors

   Note

   Here the adverb becomes a place you can name, and it comes with the article: the indoors. Its natural partner is the outdoors, and the two are often set against each other as ways of spending one's time, as in preferring the indoors to the outdoors. Where the plain adverb says where someone is, this noun names indoor life itself.

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