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Glite Dictionary
🗂️ To label unfairly 🗂️ A narrow category 📬 A small compartment 📬 To store neatly
to pigeonhole

to pigeonhole

6.8
To put papers or small items into a desk compartment
  • verb
  • /ˈpɪdʒənˌhoʊl/
translation icon : poner en un casillero
  • To keep her workflow organized, she always pigeonholes her files according to their importance.

Examples

  • The manager had to pigeonhole each task into its correct section of the project planner.

  • In his childhood, he had discovered the formula for summing up an infinite geometric progression many years before it was formulated by Friedrich Gauss, but proving the formula bored him so much that he decided to pigeonhole it, thus keeping the fame of the world away from himself and his city.

    Fiction book (1994)

  • She decided to pigeonhole the documents into the labeled compartments of her desk organizer.

Synonyms

to stow
vsto pigeonhole
57 5.8

Pack things tightly into a small space to save room

is about placing items in small slots without emphasis on tight packing
to silo
vsto pigeonhole
  • Specialized
1 4.8

To store grain or animal feed inside a tall farm container

is about placing items into small indoor slots rather than large storage structures
to bin
vsto pigeonhole
1 2.9

To put something in a container to keep or throw away

is about using small designated slots rather than general containers

Antonyms

to remove
∞ 1.5

To move something or someone away from a place

How Careful

to stow
57 5.8
to pigeonhole
6.8
to shove
528 2.7
to drop
∞ 1.0

Surface Forms

pigeonhole infinitive
pigeonholed past
pigeonholed past participle
pigeonholing present participle
pigeonholes third person singular

Morphology

pigeonhole = pigeonhole (transparent) = pigeon + hole

This verb is a straightforward conversion of the noun 'pigeonhole', and the literal sense is directly motivated by the idea of placing something into a compartment.

Etymology

Pigeonhole as a verb comes from the action of putting letters into those small desk boxes that looked like bird 'holes', so to pigeonhole something is to put it into a small slot or compartment.