closure

plural closures

1. countableuncountableAn event or occurrence that signifies an ending.
2. countablefigurativelyuncountableA feeling of completeness; the experience of an emotional conclusion, usually to a difficult period.

   to find emotional closure

   2 more examples

   In crowded rooms, and I keep lookin' for closeness / Maybe I'll never get closure

   2024, “Crowded Roomz”, in Silence is Loud, performed by Nia Archives

   In Israel, a state commission of inquiry is not merely a judicial instrument or a means of settling facts. It’s a ritual of national closure that allows people to put events in order and move on.

   2025 March 14, Gershom Gorenberg, “Netanyahu Doesn’t Want the Truth to Come Out”, in The Atlantic

   Antonyms: uncertainty

3. countableuncountableA device to facilitate temporary and repeatable opening and closing.
4. countableuncountablecomputingAn abstraction that represents a function within an environment, a context consisting of the variables that are both bound at a particular time during the execution of the program and that are within the function's scope.

   Instead, make f and g input arguments, and use the closure around the inner function so that this code works with any two functions that you provide. Closures are important features that work amazingly well with higher-order functions; I’ll review them in section 4.4.

   2021, Luis Atencio, The Joy of JavaScript, New York: Manning Publications, →ISBN, page 82

5. countableuncountablemathematicsThe smallest set that both includes a given subset and possesses some given property.
6. countableuncountablemathematicsThe smallest closed set which contains the given set.

   7 THEOREM The closure of any set is the union of the set and the set of its accumulation points.

   1955 [Van Nostrand Reinhold], John L. Kelley, General Topology, 2017, Dover, page 42, The closure (𝔗-closure) of a subset A of a topological space (X,𝔗) is the intersection of the members of the family of all closed sets containing A. […]

7. countableuncountableThe act of shutting; a closing.

   the closure of a door, or of a chink

8. countableuncountableThe act of shutting or closing something permanently or temporarily.

   The closure of Hammersmith Bridge means road traffic has to use Chiswick and Putney Bridges instead.

   3 more examples

   Those who have advocated the closure of the G.C. have so far failed to say by which alternative route this North-to-West traffic could be carried.

   1960 December, B. Perren, “The role of the Great Central—present and future”, in Trains Illustrated, page 765

   Despite the line proving to be a useful strategic route for men and supplies to the British naval fleets stationed at Scapa Flow in both world wars, the Duke's legacy looked to have passed into history when it was listed for closure in the infamous Beeching report.

   2021 October 20, Paul Stephen, “Leisure and pleasure on the Far North Line”, in RAIL, number 942, page 48

   Schrinner has since said the closures are needed to assess storm damage and to build the case for a major bridge restoration.

   2025 April 13, Joe Hinchliffe, “Sudden closure of Story Bridge to cyclists shows ‘car is still king in Brisbane’”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

9. countableuncountableThat which closes or shuts; that by which separate parts are fastened or closed.

   1 more example

   1729 November 28, Alexander Pope, Letter to Jonathan Swift, 1824, The Works of Jonathan Swift: Containing Additional Letters, Volume 17, 2nd Edition, page 284, I admire on this consideration your sending your last to me quite open, without a seal, wafer, or any closure whatever, manifesting the utter openness of the writer.

   Synonyms: fastener

10. countableobsoleteuncountableThat which encloses or confines; an enclosure.

    O thou bloody prison […] / Within the guilty closure of thy walls / Richard the Second here was hacked to death.

    c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii]

11. countableuncountablegovernmentA method of ending a parliamentary debate and securing an immediate vote upon a measure before a legislative body.
12. countableuncountablehuman sciencesThe phenomenon by which a group maintains its resources by the exclusion of others based on various criteria.
13. countableuncountablecomicsThe process whereby the reader of a comic book infers the sequence of events by looking at the picture panels.

    The comic book reader performs closure within each panel, between panels, and among panels.

    2009, Randy Duncan, Matthew J. Smith, The Power of Comics: History, Form and Culture, page 166

14. countableuncountablefood packaging industryThe element of packaging that closes a container.
15. countableuncountableGestalt psychologyThe phenomenon whereby incomplete objects, shapes, and figures are perceived as complete.

present singular third person closures · participle present closuring · participle past closured · past closured

1. transitivegovernmentTo end the parliamentary debate on (an issue) by closure.

   At any time they could have stopped discussion by closuring amendments and by closuring the clause under discussion.

   1893, The New Review, volume 9, page 119