enclosure
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English
Alternative forms
- inclosure (was as common as or more common until the early 1800s; now uncommon)
Etymology
From Middle English enclosure, from Old French enclosure, from enclore, from Latin inclūdere, inclūdō, from in- (“in”) + claudō (“to shut”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kleh₂u- (“key, hook, nail”). Alike to inclusion.
Pronunciation
- (US) IPA(key): /ɛnˈkloʊʒəɹ/, /ɪnˈkloʊʒəɹ/
- (UK) IPA(key): /ɪnˈkləʊʒə/
Audio (Southern England): (file) - (New Zealand) IPA(key): /ɘnˈklɐʉʒɘ/
- Hyphenation: en‧clo‧sure
Noun
enclosure (countable and uncountable, plural enclosures)
- (countable) Something that is enclosed, i.e. inserted into a letter or similar package.
- There was an enclosure with the letter — a photo.
- (uncountable) The act of enclosing, i.e. the insertion or inclusion of an item in a letter or package.
- The enclosure of a photo with your letter is appreciated.
- (countable) An area, domain, or amount of something partially or entirely enclosed by barriers.
- He faced punishment for creating the fenced enclosure in a public park.
- The glass enclosure holds the mercury vapor.
- The winning horse was first into the unsaddling enclosure.
- 1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 199:
- And the village was deserted, the huts gaped black, rotting, all askew within the fallen enclosures.
- (uncountable) The act of separating and surrounding an area, domain, or amount of something with a barrier.
- The enclosure of public land is against the law.
- The experiment requires the enclosure of mercury vapor in a glass tube.
- At first, untrained horses resist enclosure.
- (uncountable, by extension) The act of restricting access to ideas, works of art or technologies using patents or intellectual property laws.
- 2014, Astra Taylor, chapter 5, in The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age, Henry Holt and Company, →ISBN:
- Copyright, from day one, was designed to be both an impediment and an incentive, a mechanism of enclosure (one that prevented the unlicensed printing of texts, thereby limiting access) and a catalyst of sorts, a structure to stimulate the production of literary goods by rewarding writers and publishers for their labor.
- 2019, Robert Stam, World Literature, Transnational Cinema, and Global Media[1], Routledge, →ISBN:
- The commons evokes resistance to “enclosure” in all its forms, whether in its early proto-capitalist form of fencing in commonly shared land, or in its contemporary forms of marshalling judicial restraints such as “patent” and “intellectual property” to police the ownership of ideas.
- (uncountable, British History) The post-feudal process of subdivision of common lands for individual ownership.
- Strip-farming disappeared after enclosure.
- (religion) The area of a convent, monastery, etc where access is restricted to community members.
Usage notes
- For more on the spelling of this word, see enclose.
Derived terms
Translations
something enclosed
|
act of enclosing
|
area partially or entirely enclosed by walls, fences or buildings
|
act of separating and surrounding an area etc. with a barrier
|
post-feudal process of subdivision of common lands for individual ownership
inaccessible part of the monastery
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Anagrams
Old French
Alternative forms
Etymology
enclos-, stem of enclore + -ure.
Noun
enclosure oblique singular, f (oblique plural enclosures, nominative singular enclosure, nominative plural enclosures)
References
- Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l’ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IXe au XVe siècle (1881) (encloseure)
- enclosure on the Anglo-Norman On-Line Hub
Categories:
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms derived from Old French
- English terms derived from Latin
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English 3-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio pronunciation
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English uncountable nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with usage examples
- English terms with quotations
- en:Religion
- Old French terms suffixed with -ure
- Old French lemmas
- Old French nouns
- Old French feminine nouns