Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A small room; a cubbyhole.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A snug, confined place; a cubbyhole.
  • Snug; close.
  • noun A creel or basket of straw carried on the back and fastened by a strap across the chest: used in the Orkney and Shetland islands.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A snug or confined or secluded place; a small room or a snug space within a room.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A small, confined space.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a small secluded room

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Short for cubbyhole.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English cub "stall". Cognate with French cagibi.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word cubby.

Examples

  • Even if it's largely defined by her "cubby," which as far as I know, is the first time she'll have a designated space of her own outside the house.

    reveille! 2007

  • This was drunk in a kind of cubby-hole off the night nursery, the three colonials having failed to fraternise with the posse of English servants who had been taken over with the house: a set of prim, starched pokers these, ran the verdict; and deceitful, too, with their “sirs” and “madams” to your face, and all the sneery backbiting that went on below-stairs.

    The Way Home 2003

  • The Casimirs lived in a kind of cubby-hole way down Ste.

    Social life in old New Orleans : being recollections of my girlhood, 1912

  • This last amusement soon grew quite absorbing, and her "cubby," as she called it, rapidly became a pretty grotto, where she lived like a little mermaid, daily loving more and more the beauty of the wonderful sea, Finding the boat too sunny at times, the boys cut long willow boughs and arched them over the seats, laying hemlock branches across till a green roof made it cool and shady inside.

    Jack And Jill Alcott, Louisa May, 1832-1888 1902

  • This last amusement soon grew quite absorbing, and her "cubby," as she called it, rapidly became a pretty grotto, where she lived like a little mermaid, daily loving more and more the beauty of the wonderful sea.

    Jack and Jill Louisa May Alcott 1860

  • After the classroom emptied I spoke with Stuart’s teacher and learned that my instincts had been correct: the worksheet incident was not an isolated one, Stuart consistently lost his homework or left it at home, and his cubby was a disaster.

    The Organized Student Donna Goldberg with Jennifer Zwiebel 2005

  • After the classroom emptied I spoke with Stuart’s teacher and learned that my instincts had been correct: the worksheet incident was not an isolated one, Stuart consistently lost his homework or left it at home, and his cubby was a disaster.

    The Organized Student Donna Goldberg with Jennifer Zwiebel 2005

  • Large Mid-Cabin with the open entrance so you don't feel like you are in the "cubby"

    craigslist | for sale / wanted in seattle-tacoma webmaster@craigslist.org 2010

  • For $375 a month / person (if you chose to share "a four-by-six cubby") or $530 to 800 a month (for a "cubby" of your very own), "artistically" - inclined twenty somethings get to rest their heads in spaces that one resident generously described as looking

    Dealbreaker 2009

  • For $375 a month / person (if you chose to share "a four-by-six cubby") or $530 to 800 a month (for a "cubby" of your very own), "artistically" - inclined twenty somethings get to rest their heads in spaces that one resident generously described as looking

    Dealbreaker 2009

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • The king said the cubby would do for his valley -- meaning me. HF 26

    December 7, 2006

  • In Australia, a child's playhouse.

    September 10, 2010