Lock-in
noun
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A sleepover party, usually held in a public place such as a church or school, in which the participants are not allowed to leave until the next morning. US
"The youth group will have their annual lock-in this weekend."
- 2 An illegal but widely-tolerated invitation-only gathering in a British pub, after the end of licensing hours, to allow regular customers the opportunity to enjoy further drinking time. Ireland, UK
"He was a lunatic drunk and started sing songs that lasted into the early hours of the morning and resulted in many weekend lock-ins in the village pub."
- 3 A situation in which members of an industry have agreed to adopt a certain standard and have retooled their production to meet this standard, thus making it very costly to change to a different standard.
"vendor lock-in"
- 4 The situation where an investor cannot trade without incurring an undesirable penalty such as taxation.
Synonyms
All synonymsAntonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"The youth group will have their annual lock-in this weekend."
Etymology
Deverbal from lock in.
More for "lock-in"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.