pigeonhole

Literal pigeonholes (sense 1)

A pigeon-hole messagebox at Stanford University. (sense 2)

A desk featuring pigeonholes (sense 4)

• pigeon-hole, pigeon hole

From pigeon +‎ hole. Originally literal hole for pigeons, later similar compartments for papers, then extended metaphorically in verb sense of narrowly categorizing or deferring.

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pigeonhole (plural pigeonholes)

2. One of an array of compartments for housing pigeons in a pigeon loft (dovecote).
4. (by extension) One of an array of compartments for receiving mail and other messages at a college, office, etc.

   Fred was disappointed to find his pigeonhole empty except for bills and a flyer offering 20% off on manicures.

6. One of an array of compartments for storing scrolls at a library.
8. A similar compartment in a desk, used for sorting and storing papers.
10. (figurative) A category.
    • 2007 September 7, David Mills, “Do we need to keep the Beats in their box?”, in The Guardian‎:

      The Beat writers had very different styles and disliked the invented term and pigeonhole forced upon them.

    • 2018 May 4, Kaite Welsh, “'Single women fiction': how a genre went from subversive to sad”, in The Guardian‎:

      Amazon’s new pigeonhole for books about unmarried females is far more old-fashioned than the ‘New Woman novel’ tag deployed in the 19th century

pigeonhole (third-person singular simple present pigeonholes, present participle pigeonholing, simple past and past participle pigeonholed)

1. To categorize; especially to limit or be limited to a particular category, role, etc.

   Fred was tired of being pigeonholed as a computer geek.

   • 1902 October, Jack London, A Daughter of the Snows, Philadelphia, Pa.: J B Lippincott Company, →OCLC:

     He prided himself on his largeness when he granted that there were three kinds of women […] Not that he pigeon-holed Frona according to his inherited definitions.

   • 2000, Eminem (lyrics and music), “The Way I Am”:

     I'm not gonna be able, to top on My Name Is / And pigeonholed into some poppy sensation

   • 2023 June 28, Nick Reilly, “Meet eee gee, the singer who refuses to put her music in one box”, in Rolling Stone UK‎:

     The singer, real name Emma Grankvist, deals in whip-smart lyrics and striking melodies that offer a refreshing perspective on the world around her, all wrapped up in a package that’s brilliantly tough to pigeonhole.

2. To put aside, to not act on (proposals, suggestions, advice).

   Synonyms: mothball, shelve, table, glove box

   • 1910, Angus Hamilton, Herbert Henry Austin, Masatake Terauchi, Korea: Its History, Its People, and Its Commerce, page 294:

     These laws were not carried into effect: they were pigeon-holed.

   • 1917, “The Looking Glass: Election laws in Southern California”, in The Crisis, number 11, page 29:

     […] vociferously declared that they had the evidence. But no one prosecutes. No one swears out a warrant. The evidence is pigeonholed.

   • 2008, Edward Sidlow, Beth Henschen, America at Odds, page 251:

     Alternatively, the chairperson may decide to put the bill aside and ignore it. Most bills that are pigeonholed in this manner receive no further action.

• pidge
• pigeonholeable
• pigeonholed
• pigeonholer
• pigeonhole principle

• cubbyhole
• put someone in a box