Definitions

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

  • noun A snug or cramped space or room.
  • noun A small compartment.
  • noun A category, especially an overly restrictive one.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A small, close apartment, or inclosed space; a closet, or any similar confined place; hence, humorously, a very small house; a cot.

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

  • noun a small compartment.

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

  • noun A small, cramped room.
  • noun A small compartment; a pigeonhole.

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

  • noun a small secluded room
  • noun a small compartment

Etymologies

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

[From cub, pen, hutch (perhaps from Flemish cubbe, from Middle Flemish) + hole.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

cubby +‎ hole

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Examples

  • “‘And this room you call the cubbyhole, does it have a separate key?’

    Maigret and the Madwoman—Simenon, Georges - 100 Simenon, Georges 1970

  • Also at the cubbyhole is a nifty steampunk ocular set and cute PJs, and a ... skeleton hand ... thingie.

    Fashion World of SL 2008

  • I slept in whatever kind of cubbyhole they had -- slept in Wayne's office at Anna Maria's -- and I'll tell you, I didn't miss what you call "the trappings of stardom" at all.

    I Tina Turner, Tina 1952

  • "cubbyhole" with access to just one computer, phone line and printer, Wanzco said, adding that other departing lawmakers will have similar accommodations during the transition.

    Right on the Left Coast: Views From a Conservative Teacher 2008

  • Meanwhile, a Donilon move to the big office across the hall could open the way for NSC chief of staff Denis R. McDonough to move up out of the basement to Donilon's cubbyhole office.

    Is national security deputy Donilon moving up? Al Kamen 2010

  • They followed him into a windowless cubbyhole with an old wooden desk and tall stacks of books piled against the walls.

    The Omega Theory Mark Alpert 2011

  • She kept a fifth in a cubbyhole behind the exhaust pipe above the stove and ate mustard greens and onions and sauerkraut to cover her breath.

    Sweet Sour Sheldon Lee Compton 2010

  • When my wife was in the hospital, a doctor gave the woman in the cubbyhole next to us detailed instructions before her gynecologic surgery.

    Richard C. Senelick, M.D.: Little Privacy in Health Care -- Shame on Us M.D. Richard C. Senelick 2011

  • However, many of the apartment complexes here in Kent and some of the exurbs at least in design appear like a co-housing design (lots of inner courtyards, some isolation from parked cars) than the concrete cubbyhole condos that infected the city during the reign of the egregious Greg Nichols.

    Co-Housing Trend Hits Seattle « PubliCola 2010

  • Meanwhile, a Donilon move to the big office across the hall could open the way for NSC chief of staff Denis R. McDonough to move up out of the basement to Donilon's cubbyhole office.

    Is national security deputy Donilon moving up? Al Kamen 2010

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