Wardrobe

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈwɔːdɹəʊb/

Definitions

1. A tall piece of furniture with doors used for storing clothes and other personal items
2. A piece of furniture designed for hanging clothes and storing accessories
3. a collection of clothing items for various occasions

Etymology: The word's surface reading, "ward" plus "robe," is misleading: "wardrobe" began as a room for keeping clothes, not a piece of furniture. In Old French the parallel form "garderobe" combined "garder," meaning "to keep safe," with "robe," meaning "garment," so it named a place where garments were stored. Middle English borrowed the northern variant "warderobe" from Old Northern French, and the word then carried the sense of a chamber or storeroom, including the storage of valuables and state garments in royal households. Only later did the word shift from the room to the cabinet that now holds clothes. The French "garderobe" also came to mean a privy, a sense that developed in French alongside the storage meaning, so English and French ended up with the same root diverging in very different directions. The two words are doublets, both descending from one French source.

Synonyms: closet, armoire, cabinet, chest, storage