cabinet
/ˈkabɪnɪt
/noun
1A cupboard with drawers or shelves for storing or displaying articles: a cocktail cabinet...
- The walls were lined with racks and shelves and cupboards and cabinets holding an assortment of equipment in organized rows.
- The huge old kitchen was rife with cabinets and cubbies, drawers and cupboards, shelves and pie-safes, and each one had been crammed full.
- They went through cabinets, shelves and drawers, pulling out professional looking documents and files.
Synonyms
cupboard;
case, container
1.1A wooden box or piece of furniture housing a radio, television set, or speaker.Today high density polyethylene, with its linear chains, is used for radio and television cabinets, toys, and large-diameter pipes....
- Street furniture, utility cabinets and junction boxes are next up on the cleaning agenda.
- The loudspeaker resembled a 30s valve radio in that it had a large speaker grille and a wooden cabinet and seemed to have been created for the schools market.
2 (also Cabinet) (In the UK, Canada, and other Commonwealth countries) the committee of senior ministers responsible for controlling government policy: [as modifier]: a cabinet meeting...
- He chairs the meetings of the <emcabinet and appoints ministers to the numerous cabinet committees.
- He has retained a cabinet post as senior minister since second-generation PAP leaders came to power.
- Before he became prime minister, he had also headed the powerful education and industries ministries as well as the cabinet committee on economic affairs.
2.1(In the US) a body of advisers to the president, composed of the heads of the executive departments of the government.Executive power is vested in a cabinet headed by a president who is head of state and commander in chief....
- So I've been working on it myself, and I've had some advisers from my cabinet when I was president, as well as some Carter Center folks.
- As far as they have been concerned, reliance on staff has served their purposes better than a system that relies on the cabinet or the executive branch departments.
Synonyms
senior ministers, ministry, council, counsellors, administration, executive;
inner circle;
senate
3 archaic A small private room.In square footage they equal nearly half the area of the bedroom, cabinet, and book room....
- Decisions are often made behind closed doors - in cabinet or board room - sometimes overseas.
Origin
Mid 16th century: from cabin + -et1, influenced by French cabinet.
The modern meaning of ‘a piece of furniture’ developed from the original sense ‘little cabin’ or ‘small room’. The use for the body of chief ministers who meet to discuss government policy dates from the 17th century. Confidential advisers of the monarch or chief ministers used to hold their meetings in a private room, and in time the term for the room was applied to the politicians themselves. Compare board