(no subject)

[nny]

Okay, question from the bizarre English lass - closet and cupboard. Are they used interchangeably? Is a closet only when built in? Is a cupboard only when not clothes? Do you use wardrobe or is that just us? What's the wardrobe equivalent? Can someone comment with something really interesting here so that I don't have to write the break-up scene?

XD

Comments

[muji]

Closet: a big tall thing you hang clothes in.
Cupboard: A smaller thing with shelves that (for me -- I am particular) is only in the kitchen to store dishes.
Cabinet: Everything that isn't the above. (See medicine cabinet.)
Wardrobe: It's, again, for me? A particular type of dresser. *hunts google for first image a wardrobe is for me* Here. A free-standing closet? Sure.

[villainny.livejournal.com]

So wardrobes are implicitly Narnia related? :D

[muji]

LOL -- for me, yes. See also boudoirs.

[villainny.livejournal.com]

...boudoirs are Narnia related? What kind of fic were you reading?

[muji]

...Nevermind.

(No, I meant that I associate the words wardrobe and boudoir together.)

[villainny.livejournal.com]

I associate the word 'boudoir' with my friend's bedroom. He made us paint it in ZEBRA STRIPES, it was awesome. :D

[kassie-opia.livejournal.com]

I always thought a closet is what I'd call a wardrobe, whereas a cupboard is a thing high up in a kitchen to put plates and mugs in. BUT I DUNNO.
Err... I don't know anything interesting much, but here is some helpful and possibly distracting advice:
Never grate the edge of your little sister's salt dough sculpture on to pasta, thinking it is parmesan. Because a) it tastes fairly unpleasant, and b) she will cry.

[villainny.livejournal.com]

My sister remixes songs for her Gweat Awt. They are harder to grate. XD

[kassie-opia.livejournal.com]

Mine is only five, but I am certain she will move on to such things in time... and slightly fear the day, actually.

[villainny.livejournal.com]

My sister made her first album when she was 11 - it was called 'bananas fly solo' and included a techno remix of my laugh which is the SCARIEST THING EVER.

[kassie-opia.livejournal.com]

dear god, that sounds EVIL. But rather inspired? All Daffy does is make sculptures THAT LOOK EXACTLY LIKE CHEESE (it was not my fault, you see) and write me long, adorably mis-spelled lists of people she thinks I ought to marry, for some reason.

My definitions.

[gramarye1971]

Honestly, I think it depends based on family terminology. The kitchen cupboard/cabinet distinction is usually a dishes/food storage distinction, but not always in some households. I've been known to talk about 'kitchen cabinets' in one household and 'kitchen cupboards' in another. Harry Potter slept in a cupboard under the stairs, but some people might just call that a 'storage space'.

To me, though, a wardrobe is always a free-standing place for storing clothes, but it's usually a much grander piece of furniture made of actual wood and used solely for clothing storage. I didn't call the cheap tatty plywood thing I used in my dormitory a 'wardrobe', for instance.

[fahye.livejournal.com]

This post has made me realise that the ONLY time I ever use the word 'closet' is when referring to the metaphorical thing that some queer people live in.

Heh.

(For me, EVERYTHING is a cupboard. Unless it is specifically designed to have clothes in it. Then it's a wardrobe.

I realise you are probably not writing John And Rodney Inexplicably Develop An Interest In Antipodean Furniture, but what the hey, I can never resist a comparative semantics post.)

[tablesaw]

In my neck of the woods (Southern California):

A closet is an architectural feature. It is a very small room, or perhaps merely a recess, but it always has a door. Soemtiems they hold clothes, and there is usually one near a bedroom for this purpose. However, they can also hold other things (as linen closets or storage closets).

Cabinet and cupboard are generally the same. They are usually not freestanding, but they are not strictly architectural. That is, they are usually installed into the wall. Cupboards always to contain kitchen-related things (food, china, etc,), while a cabinet may contain other items. These also have doors.

A wardrobe is a freestanding piece of furniture intended to hold clothing. It is large, so that full sets of clothing can be hung. It may also contain drawers (like a dresser), but needn't. It usually has a door, but I suppose it's possible that one wouldn't.

[ms-ntropy.livejournal.com]

I've always assumed that Closets were built into a wall, while cabinets and cupboards are added to it.

If that makes any sense.

[genarti]

Yeah.

And cupboards are smaller -- maybe two or three feet high, whether they're under the kitchen counter or up on the wall. (Mostly cupboard = kitchen to me, but there are also bathroom cupboards, aka medicine cupboards.) A closet is at least six or seven feet tall -- normal door height.

"Cupboard" no longer looks like a real word to me.

[cow.livejournal.com]

In general--for me, at least--closets are for clothes (and usually a separate room or mini-room) and cupboards are for dishes in the kitchen. Wardrobe is a big ol' thing that comes out of the wall. A smaller, moveable version (which is what most people have) is a dresser.

It should be noted that my wordings are considered a weird mix of Great Lakes Canadian, Great Lakes American, and Southern, with a little bit of America Western mixed in. Everybody thinks I talk funny. :p

[ygrane.livejournal.com]

A closet is a built-in wardrobe, a cupboard is a cabinet, usually what we put dishes in. Wardrobes are sometimes called armoires. Closet and wardrobe are not interchangeable. ^_^

Anything else?

[raggedass-road.livejournal.com]

Closet would be something you can actually walk into, has a doorknob, part of the actual structure of the house, and shares the same floor and ceiling as the room it's a part of.

'Cupboard' is not interchangeable with 'closet.' A cupboard generally is a fixture or piece of furniture assembled separately and removable from the house, OR, it's a storage space that is part of the house design, but does not share the same floor and ceiling with the room it's a part of. (It may share one or the other or neither, but not both.)

When a fellow American says 'wardrobe,' I take that to mean 'all the clothes I own,' and not a piece of furniture, so can't really tell you the equivalent there.