Dictionary

armoire en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ɑːmˈwɑː/ (UK)
• (US) audio
• /ɑɹmˈwɑɹ/ (US)

Etymology

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

Meanings

1. A type of cupboard, cabinet, or wardrobe, originally used for storing weapons.
   • 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. 2002, Edith Grossman, transl., chapter 1, in Living to Tell the Tale, translation of original by Gabriel García Márquez:
   • In 2003, at Neal Auction Company in New Orleans, an 1810s mahogany armoire inlaid with ribbons and vines brought $140,000 (the presale estimate was $30,000 to $50,000). 2010 December 9, Eve M. Kahn, “Exploring the Art of Louisiana Furniture”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 18 Jun 2020:
   • 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. 1991, Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho, London: Picador, →ISBN, page 244:
   • 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. 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter VIII, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC:

Forms

Deriveds

jewellery armoire

Translations (2)

bg шкаф (type of cupboard, cabinet or wardrobe) · bg армоа́р (type of cupboard, cabinet or wardrobe)