dormitory
noun
Simple meaning
A college or university building containing living quarters for students.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
dawrmuhtawreeSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈdɔɹmətɔɹi
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A college or university building containing living quarters for students
A building or part of a building which houses students, soldiers, monks etc. who sleep there and use communal further facilities.
A room containing a number of beds (and often some other furniture and/or utilities) for sleeping, often applied to student and backpacker accommodation of this kind.
A large sleeping room containing several beds
A dormitory town.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced (estimated)
- Frequency
- Uncommon
- Formality
- Technical
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A college or university building containing living quarters for students
Used this way, dormitory is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
Share your sentence
Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A large sleeping room containing several beds.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: college
Ask Vocabaura
Understand the word your way.
What Does It Mean Here?
Words can change meaning depending on context.
Use it yourself
Keep learning “dormitory” by choosing the kind of practice you need next.
- Practice sentence writingWrite sentences with vocabulary and get instant feedback.
- Practice in contextAnswer short vocabulary questions drawn from real situations.
- Review vocabularyTest your recall and strengthen words over time.
- Practice typingType vocabulary from meanings, examples and other prompts.
Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.