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dormitory room

dormitory room

1 2.2
A large sleeping room in a school or other place shared by several people
  • noun
  • /ˈdɔrmɪˌtɔri rum/
translation icon : dormitorio
  • After a long day of classes, I returned to my dormitory room to relax and study.

Examples

  • Michael was sitting in his dormitory room making the final summary sheet for 7 weeks of classroom notes.

    Fiction book (1997)
  • Cyclists will check into their dormitory rooms at Fort Lewis College as early as Tuesday or Wednesday.

    Blog text (20)
  • In her first year at law school, her dormitory room was clean enough; it even had a window overlooking Washington Square Park.

    Fiction book (1996)
  • We were both sitting on the edge of the lumpy bed of her dormitory room on the third floor.

    Fiction book (1993)
  • Within three days of the publication of that article, there were three enormous sacks of mail in front of my dormitory room.

  • Zuckerberg, 28, started Facebook with fellow Harvard students in 2004 in their college dormitory room.

    Blog text (9)
  • For student housing at the Maria Mitchell Observatory, we had available only one dormitory room, so we could not very well be co-educational.

    Academic text (1993)
  • The cold Minnesota night outside the window snaps a sting into the air and stretches across the dormitory room.

    Fiction book (1996)
  • Late on a Friday evening at the University of Pennsylvania two winters ago, freshman Eden Jacobowitz was studying in his dormitory room.

    Academic text (1995)
  • Ten minutes later, he sat on the floor of his Indiana University dormitory room, staring at a single entry in the Bloomington white pages as his fingers began punching the numbers.

    Fiction book (2002)

Synonyms

bedroom
vsdormitory room
1.0

A room in a house where people sleep

is communal and larger, used in institutions with many beds
dorm room
vsdormitory room
  • Informal
47 1.6

A bedroom in a building where students live, often shared with others

is broader institutional sleeping space rather than only student areas
dormitory
vsdormitory room
10 3.0

A large room with many beds where people sleep, for example at a camp

has identical meaning but is written as a two word phrase
bedchamber
vsdormitory room
  • Archaic
9 7.2

A bedroom in a large or old house

is institutional and shared, not a private historic household space
sleeping room
vsdormitory room
  • Specialized
1 1.0

A room for sleeping

is specifically a large shared institutional space with several beds
sleeping accommodation
vsdormitory room
1 3.4

A place for sleeping, often in a hotel or train

is a large multi bed institutional sleeping space rather than temporary area

How Big

dormitory room
1 2.2
sleeping room
  • Specialized
1 1.0
double bed
5 1.2
single bed
  • UK
5 1.0

Surface Forms

Morphology

dormitory + room

The meaning 'a large sleeping room' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'dormitory' (shared sleeping accommodation) with 'room' (an indoor space); a B1 learner who knows both words can readily infer that this refers to a sleeping room in a dormitory. Although slightly tautological because 'dormitory' already implies a sleeping room, the noun-noun composition is straightforward and follows common cross-linguistic patterns, so the phrase is immediately comprehensible.

Etymology

The noun dormitory room comes from the word dormitory, an old word for a 'sleeping place', combined with room. The image is a big room with many beds, so it now means 'a large shared sleeping room' in schools or camps.