cellar
Americannoun
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a room, or set of rooms, for the storage of food, fuel, etc., wholly or partly underground and usually beneath a building.
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an underground room or story.
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Sports. the lowest position in a group ranked in order of games won.
The team was in the cellar for most of the season.
verb (used with object)
noun
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an underground room, rooms, or storey of a building, usually used for storage Compare basement
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a place where wine is stored
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a stock of bottled wines
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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cellarsimple
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cellarssimple
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have cellaredperfect
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has cellaredperfect
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am cellaringprogressive
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are cellaringprogressive
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is cellaringprogressive
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have been cellaringperfect progressive
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has been cellaringperfect progressive
Past
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cellaredsimple
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had cellaredperfect
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was cellaringprogressive
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were cellaringprogressive
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had been cellaringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of cellar
1175–1225; Middle English celer < Anglo-French < Latin cellārium storeroom, equivalent to cell ( a ) cell + -ārium -ary; later respelling to reflect Latin form; see -er 2, -ar 2
Explanation
A cellar is a basic, unfinished basement. In a very old house, the cellar might have stone walls and a rough dirt floor. Your cellar might basically be a basement, a place you keep your tools and do your laundry. Some cellars have specific purposes, including a storm cellar, where you take cover during a tornado or other storm, and a root cellar, where you store potatoes and other root vegetables during the cold months of the year. This kind of cellar comes the closest to the meaning of the Latin root, cellarium: "pantry or storeroom."
Vocabulary lists containing cellar
Salt to the Sea
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"Marionettes, Inc." by Ray Bradbury
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"After Apple-Picking" by Robert Frost
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The notion that red wine must be served at room temperature is an outdated concept based on it being kept in the much cooler conditions of a cellar, says Bartolotta.
From BBC ● Jul. 12, 2026
The house has a wood-paneled office with a coffered ceiling and a brick-floored wine cellar with an antique wine press.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 4, 2026
Luxe amenities include a gym, wine cellar, and bar.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 8, 2026
However, there are also several other more unique entertaining spaces found throughout the home, particularly on the lower level, which encompasses “a private theater, temperature-controlled wine cellar, fitness studio, and spa-inspired steam room.”
From MarketWatch ● May 19, 2026
Something about his pacing and his preoccupied manner reminded me of Mrs. Maroney at her cellar door, guarding where she’d hidden her loot.
From "The Detective's Assistant" by Kate Hannigan
It also had three kitchens, five bars, two wine cellars, a four-lane bowling alley, a helipad, a gym, a wellness center, a gaming area and an 85-foot-long infinity pool.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 17, 2026
This can lead to water filtering upwards above roads or into cellars and basements.
From BBC ● Feb. 18, 2026
“I have felt for a long time that there are thousands and thousands of American citizens with cellars full of guns,” Close said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 28, 2026
That preference held across a wide range of indoor environments, from science labs to art studios, locker rooms to wine cellars.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 11, 2024
Mattresses were brought up from the cellars and pitched all over the corridors; meals consisted of sandwiches and Victory Coffee wheeled round on trolleys by attendants from the canteen.
From "1984" by George Orwell
That said, it could also be cellared for a few years.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 27, 2025
“It transforms cellared vegetables and stale bread into something absolutely magical,” she said.
From Salon ● Oct. 12, 2025
Bonnie Raitt’s fireside longshot drinks like a cellared fine wine, but wasn’t exactly zeitgeisty.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 4, 2023
An adage had it that you drank wine cellared by your parents, and bought wine for your children.
From New York Times ● Feb. 13, 2020
Vee-Vee; have you no cooling beverage? none of that golden wine distilled from torrid grapes, and then sent northward to be cellared in an iceberg?
From Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II by Melville, Herman
And even though glass will almost certainly remain the packaging of choice, we may see more boxes and cans, especially for wines not intended for cellaring.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 15, 2021
Stone’s Sysak, who has 2,600 bottles in his personal collection, shares Hancock’s reservations about cellaring IPAs and hoppy ales.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 29, 2015
Those transformations make cellaring fun, though the results can be divisive.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 29, 2015
When Dogfish Head released the latest batch of 120 Minute, in mid-August, beer lovers lined up to pay $200 a case, with many telling Calagione they had cellaring plans.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 29, 2015
He'll break out some day like a keg of ale With too much independent frenzy in it; And all for cellaring what he knows won't keep, And what he'd best forget—but that he can't.
From The Man Against the Sky by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.