enclosure
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ɛnˈkloʊʒəɹ/
ipa: /ɪnˈkloʊʒəɹ/
ipa: /ɪnˈkləʊʒə/
ipa: /ɘnˈklɐʉʒɘ/
Forms: form: enclosures
form: inclosure
Etymology: From Middle English enclosure, from Old French enclosure, from enclore, from Latin inclūdere, inclūdō, from in- (“in”) + claudō (“to shut”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kleh₂u- (“key, hook, nail”). Alike to inclusion.
Senses: examples: text: There was an enclosure with the letter — a photo.
glosses: Something that is enclosed, i.e. inserted into a letter or similar package.
examples: text: The enclosure of a photo with your letter is appreciated.
glosses: The act of enclosing, i.e. the insertion or inclusion of an item in a letter or package.
examples: text: He faced punishment for creating the fenced enclosure in a public park.
text: The glass enclosure holds the mercury vapor.
text: The winning horse was first into the unsaddling enclosure.
text: And the village was deserted, the huts gaped black, rotting, all askew within the fallen enclosures.
ref: 1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 199:
text: Away from the village, there was an enclosure containing several large animals of a kind I had not seen before—shaggy, long-necked, small-headed creatures who stood or lay at ease around their pen. Alpacas?
ref: 1989, Octavia E. Butler, “Part III, Chapter 7”, in Imago, page 210:
glosses: An area, domain, or amount of something partially or entirely enclosed by barriers.
examples: text: The enclosure of public land is against the law.
text: The experiment requires the enclosure of mercury vapor in a glass tube.
text: At first, untrained horses resist enclosure.
glosses: The act of separating and surrounding an area, domain, or amount of something with a barrier.
examples: text: Copyright, from day one, was designed to be both an impediment and an incentive, a mechanism of enclosure (one that prevented the unlicensed printing of texts, thereby limiting access) and a catalyst of sorts, a structure to stimulate the production of literary goods by rewarding writers and publishers for their labor.
ref: 2014, Astra Taylor, chapter 5, in The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age, Henry Holt and Company, →ISBN:
text: The commons evokes resistance to “enclosure” in all its forms, whether in its early proto-capitalist form of fencing in commonly shared land, or in its contemporary forms of marshalling judicial restraints such as “patent” and “intellectual property” to police the ownership of ideas.
ref: 2019, Robert Stam, World Literature, Transnational Cinema, and Global Media, Routledge, →ISBN:
glosses: The act of restricting access to ideas, works of art or technologies using patents or intellectual property laws.
examples: text: Strip-farming disappeared after enclosure.
qualifier: British History
glosses: The post-feudal process of subdivision of common lands for individual ownership.
topics: lifestyle
religion
glosses: The area of a convent, monastery, etc where access is restricted to community members.
Derived terms: antienclosure
banjo enclosure
loudspeaker enclosure
nonenclosure
speaker enclosure