Compartment

//kəmˈpɑɹtmənt// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A room, or section, or chamber, typically within a vehicle.

    "Two men were seated in a well-lit compartment of a third-class railway carriage."

  2. 2
    a partitioned section, chamber, or separate room within a larger enclosed area wordnet
  3. 3
    One of the parts into which an area is subdivided.
  4. 4
    a space into which an area is subdivided wordnet
  5. 5
    The part of a protein that serves a specific function.
Show 2 more definitions
  1. 6
    A mound (often of grass), shelf (of e.g. wall) or other thing beneath the shield in a coat of arms on which the supporters stand.
  2. 7
    A region in the body, delimited by a biological membrane.
Verb
  1. 1
    To arrange in separate compartments. transitive

Synonyms

All synonyms
alcovebaybelowbetween-decksboiler roombooth

Example

More examples

"The shabby compartment remained vacant."

Etymology

First attested 1564, from Middle French compartiment, from Italian compartimento, from Late Latin compartiri (“to divide with, to share with”), from com- + partiri (“to apportion, to divide, to share”).

Related phrases

compartment syndromedriver's compartmentengine compartmentglove compartmentpassenger compartmentsmoking compartment

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.