Word.ws English Dictionary

in the refrigerator

in the refrigerator prepositional phrase: of a game: having its outcome beyond a doubt, despite the fact that time is remaining before the final buzzer.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (slang) Of a game: having its outcome beyond a doubt, despite the fact that time is remaining before the final buzzer.
    • This game's in the refrigerator. The door's closed, the light's out, the eggs are cooling, the butter's getting hard and the Jell-O's jiggling!

Origin of in the refrigerator

Coined by sportscaster Chick Hearn.

Questions about in the refrigerator

What does in the refrigerator mean?
In the refrigerator means of a game: having its outcome beyond a doubt, despite the fact that time is remaining before the final buzzer.
What part of speech is in the refrigerator?
In the refrigerator is a prepositional phrase.

Words near in the refrigerator in the dictionary

  1. in the racket
  2. in the rattle
  3. in the raw
  4. in the rear with the gear
  5. in the red
  6. in the refrigerator
  7. in the region of
  8. in the reign of Queen Dick
  9. in the right
  10. in the right place at the right time
  11. in the road

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: in the refrigerator (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: En-au-in the refrigerator.ogg.

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