Locker

How to spell locker

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce locker

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does locker mean?

1. nounA small lockable cupboard or compartment used to store personal belongings, typically in a school, gym, or workplace.

Locker in a sentence

• She kept her coat and boots in a locker near the gym entrance.

• Every new employee is assigned a locker for personal items.

Where does locker come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is built from the verb 'lock' plus the agent or instrument suffix '-er', so it literally names a place that locks or can be locked shut. The verb 'lock' descends from the Old English 'loc', which meant a bolt, a bar, or an enclosed fold for animals, and that sense of an enclosure carried straight through into the modern meaning of a secure compartment. The word 'locker' is recorded from the 1400s, originally describing any chest, drawer, or box that could be fastened. The familiar idea of a tall metal cabinet in a school or gym is a much later development from that same root. A vivid relic of the older sense survives in the sailor's phrase 'Davy Jones's locker', the imagined chest at the bottom of the sea where drowned things are kept.

How the word is built

• lock (to fasten, from Old English loc)
• -er (noun suffix denoting a thing or place)