cellar
/ˈsɛlə
/noun
1A room below ground level in a house, often used for storing wine or coal: the servants led us down into a cellar a wine cellar...
- Why do new Irish houses have no cellars or utility rooms?
- Modernism got rid of attics, sheds, cellars and peripheral rooms.
- The basement comprises the usual kitchen, maids' rooms and cellars associated with a grand country house of the period, more normally located in a separate wing.
Synonyms
basement, vault, crypt, undercroft, underground room, catacomb;
garden flat, sub-basement, lower ground floor
British dated below stairs
1.1A stock of wine: he spent years building up a remarkable cellar of aged Riojas...
- It has one of the best cellars of French wine in London to select from.
- He used to be a big drinker - he used to spend £10,000 a year laying down wines for his personal cellar.
- All of this does nothing at all to explain why the vast majority of the wines in my cellar today are from Europe.
verb [with object]
Store (wine) in a cellar: it is drinkable now but can be cellared for at least five years...
- Gamay juice also tends to be vinified in a hurry, not least because of market pressure for Beaujolais nouveau, and if Gamay-based wines are cellared for more than two or three years it is usually by mistake.
- However, some wine lovers also enjoy cellaring their Champagne for a few extra years.
- I have tried cellaring these wines and almost invariably the results are disappointing.
Origin
Middle English (in the general sense 'storeroom'): from Old French celier, from late Latin cellarium 'storehouse', from Latin cella 'storeroom or chamber'.