armoire

Definition

A type of cupboard, cabinet, or wardrobe, originally used for storing weapons.

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from Middle French armoire. Doublet of ambry, armarium, and almirah.

Example Sentences

• "The furnishing of this Blue Room was solid and Victorian, it having been the GHQ of my Uncle Tom's late father, who liked things substantial. There was a four-poster bed, a chunky dressing-table, a massive writing table, divers chairs, pictures on the walls of fellows in cocked hats bending over females in muslin and ringlets and over at the far side a cupboard or armoire in which you could have hidden a dozen corpses."
• "Downing the drink in a single gulp, I move over to the Anatolian white-oak armoire where I keep a brand-new nail gun I bought last week at a hardware store near my office in Wall Street."
• "She got up without lighting the lamp, felt around in the armoire for an archaic revolver that no one had fired since the War of a Thousand Days, and located in the darkness not only the place where the door was but also the exact height of the lock."