sealed

1. 1
   adjective

   Closed by a seal that keeps the contents in and outside matter out.

   The detective examined the sealed package without ever opening it.

   Each blood sample arrived in a sealed container to prevent contamination.

   Similarclosed, airtight, secured, unopened

   Oppositeopen, opened, unsealed

   Note

   The sealed envelope has become shorthand for privacy itself. Jonathan Freedland, writing in The Guardian in 2013, sets the love letter sent in a sealed envelope against secrets now sprayed into the public ether. The seal marks a boundary between the writer and the world. Unlike the 'no entry' meaning, which shuts out people, this sense closes a container and keeps its contents to the intended reader.

2. 2
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of seal.

   The workers sealed the tunnel after the final inspection.

   He sealed the jar tightly to keep the jam fresh through the year.

   Note

   One spelling does double duty here. It serves as the simple past (they sealed it) and as the participle after have or be (it has been sealed, it was sealed). The spelling also hides a second verb, because seal can mean to hunt seals, used without an object. So the crew sealed all winter describes a hunting season, not a closing. With an object, a document, jar or crossing is being shut.

3. 3
   adjective

   Closed off completely so as to prevent anyone or anything from entering.

   The entire wing of the building remained sealed after the gas leak.

   Residents could not cross the sealed checkpoint into the old city.

   Similarclosed, shut, blocked

   Oppositeopen, accessible

4. 4
   adjective

   In object-oriented programming, designating a class or method that cannot be inherited from or further overridden.

   The framework's core types are sealed to prevent unintended subclassing.

   Marking a class as sealed stops other developers from deriving new classes from it.

   Similarfinal

   Note

   A programmer's word for a class that ends its family line, because nothing can be derived from it. Declaring a class sealed is a design decision: whatever the class does, no subclass can reshape it. Programmers usually say it of the type itself, as in a sealed class or the type is sealed. It keeps the everyday idea of being closed by a seal, now applied to inheritance rather than an envelope.

5. 5
   adjective

   Of a road: having a hard surface of asphalt or macadam rather than being left unpaved.

   The highway is sealed for the first thirty miles, then turns to gravel.

   Crews worked all summer to leave the remote route fully sealed before the rains.

   Similarpaved, surfaced, metalled

   Oppositeunpaved, unsealed, unsurfaced

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