closed

[ klohzd ]

adjective

1. having or forming a boundary or barrier:

   He was blocked by a closed door.

   The house had a closed porch.

2. brought to a close; concluded:

   It was a closed incident with no repercussions.

3. not public; restricted; exclusive:

   a closed meeting;

   a closed bid at a private auction.

4. not open to new ideas or arguments.
5. self-contained; independent or self-sufficient:

   a closed, symbiotic relationship.

6. Phonetics. (of a syllable) ending with a consonant or a consonant cluster, as has, hasp. Compare open ( def 35b ).
7. Linguistics. (of a class of items) limited in membership and not readily expanded to include new items, as the class of inflectional affixes, articles, pronouns, or auxiliaries ( open, def 36 ).
8. Hunting, Angling. restricted as to the kind of game that may be legally taken and as to where or when it may be taken:

   woods closed to deer hunters.

9. Mathematics.
   1. (of a set in which a combining operation between members of the set is defined) such that performing the operation between members of the set produces a member of the set, as multiplication in the set of integers.
   2. (of an interval) containing both of its endpoints.
   3. (of a map from one topological space to another) having the property that the image of a closed set is a closed set.
   4. (of a curve) not having endpoints; enclosing an area.
   5. (of a surface) enclosing a volume.
   6. (of a function or operator) having as its graph a closed set.

closed

/ kləʊzd /

adjective

1. blocked against entry; shut
2. restricted; exclusive
3. not open to question or debate
4. (of a hunting season, etc) close
5. maths
   1. (of a curve or surface) completely enclosing an area or volume
   2. (of a set) having members that can be produced by a specific operation on other members of the same set

      the integers are a closed set under multiplication

6. Alsochecked phonetics
   1. denoting a syllable that ends in a consonant
   2. another word for close 1
7. not open to public entry or membership

   the closed society of publishing

Other Words From

• half-closed adjective
• semi·closed adjective
• well-closed adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of closed¹

First recorded in 1175–1225; Middle English; close, -ed ²

Example Sentences

Mom closed the door to her own cage and chose This Guy.

From Los Angeles Times

It alleges that small firms "are hit particularly hard", pointing to figures from the Office for National Statistics which indicate more businesses closed down than started up in 2022.

From BBC

Regardless, treaty negotiations to end plastic pollution collapsed on Sunday after the event in Busan, South Korea closed without the nations firmly agreeing to put limits on plastic production.

From Salon

In fact, demand “got so out of hand” Mr Maher has closed the contact section of his website.

From BBC

The physicists call these common paths "unique closed orbits."

From Science Daily

Related Words

• concluded
• decided
• ended
• resolved
• settled