What does closeted mean?
Closeted means (informal) Not open about one's sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity..
Closeted
/ˈklɒzɪtɪd/ · adjective
Meaning
(informal) Not open about one's sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity..
Definitions by Sense
- (informal) Not open about one's sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity.
- (by extension) Not open about some aspect of one's identity, tendency, or fondness; secret.
- simple past and past participle of closet
- Confined.
- sheltered; protected.
Example Sentences
1992, Tony Kushner, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1995, Part Two: Perestroika, Act One, Scene 4, p. 156, Belize: Get out your oven mitts. Guess who just checked in with the troubles? The Killer Queen Herself. New York's number one closeted queer.
Sally Gearhart, an ex-christian from Illinois who in the early seventies abandoned closeted lesbianism on Midwestern church college faculties for radical feminism in San Francisco,
[…] the remaining quotations, chiefly from English poetry, interested me only slightly more. They were the elegiac favourites of a closeted Romantic.
Now he feels a connection between his own closeted, esoteric sufferings and strivings and those of the poor urban working people all around him.
Sokolsky asks if he realizes that this is a walk-in clinic for closeted reality benders, and he's a disaster-response coordinator, not a therapist.
He's spent all day closeted in his room.
After they had been closeted up with the fortune-teller for some time, I knew by their looks, upon their returning, that they had been promised something great.
It was a winter evening of transparent clearness, with an innocent young moon above the house-tops; and he wanted to fill his soul's lungs with the pure radiance, and not exchange a word with any one till he and Mr. Letterblair were closeted together after dinner.
Synonyms for closeted
Antonyms for closeted
Related Words
Word Forms
- more closeted
- most closeted
Usage Notes
Choose a synonym only when it preserves the intended meaning, tone, and grammar of the full sentence.
Practice and Learn More
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a synonym for closeted?
Common synonyms include in the closet, confined, holed up.
What is the opposite of closeted?
The opposite depends on the specific sense.
How do you use closeted in a sentence?
1992, Tony Kushner, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1995, Part Two: Perestroika, Act One, Scene 4, p. 156, Belize: Get out your oven mitts. Guess who just checked in with the troubles? The Killer Queen Herself. New York's number one closeted queer.
Sources & Attribution
FreeDictionaryAPI.com / Wiktionary · Original source · CC BY-SA 4.0
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