Word.ws English Dictionary

in the closet

UK/ɪn ðə ˈklɒzɪt//ɪn ðə ˈklɑzɪt/

in the closet prepositional phrase: not open about one's sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (colloquial) Not open about one's sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity.
    • Was he in control of that narrative? Most likely not. If he’d had the choice, he would have stayed in the closet.2023 October 6, Ryan Gilbey, “The double life of Rock Hudson: ‘Let’s be frank, he was a horndog!’”, in The Guardian, →ISSN
  2. (broadly, colloquial) Not open about some feature of one's life; often construed with about.
    • She's in the closet about her gambling addiction.
    • She's in the gambling-addiction closet.

Synonyms of in the closet

Antonyms

  • out of the closet
  • out

Questions about in the closet

What does in the closet mean?
In the closet means not open about one's sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity.
What part of speech is in the closet?
In the closet is a prepositional phrase.
How do you pronounce in the closet?
In the closet is pronounced /ɪn ðə ˈklɑzɪt/ (US).

Words near in the closet in the dictionary

  1. in the buff
  2. in the business of
  3. in the can
  4. in the cards
  5. in the clear
  6. in the closet
  7. in the clouds
  8. in the club
  9. in the cold light of day
  10. in the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king
  11. in the course of time

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: in the closet (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Persent101-in the closet.wav.

Cite this entry: “in the closet.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/in_the_closet. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.