pigeonhole
part of speech
noun (a pigeonhole, pigeonholes); verb (pigeonhole, pigeonholes, pigeonholed, pigeonholing)
meaning for a pupil
1) noun: One of a set of small open boxes in a wall or desk where letters and papers are put for each person. tree →
2) verb: To decide too quickly that someone or something belongs to one simple type, unfairly: "Don't pigeonhole people." tree →
3) verb: To put something aside and ignore it (old use). tree →
sense in the lessons
In schools and offices, teachers have pigeonholes in the staff room for letters. In discussions about fairness, pigeonholing people means putting them in a box, like "girls are bad at maths", which is unfair. Similar: label, stereotype.
examples
- Leave the note in Mr Jones's pigeonhole. tree →
- Each teacher has a pigeonhole in the staff room. tree →
- Don't pigeonhole him as just a footballer; he loves poetry too. tree →
- She hated being pigeonholed as the shy one. tree →
- The letters were sorted into pigeonholes. tree →
- Pigeons once lived in holes like these in dovecotes. tree →
note
One word (sometimes "pigeon-hole"). Regular verb. Spelling: pigeon has "eo" (pi-geon).
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «pigeonhole» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.