cabin

From Middle English caban, cabane, from Old French cabane, from Medieval Latin capanna (“a cabin”); see further etymology there. Doublet of cabana.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkæbɪn/

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• Rhymes: -æbɪn

cabin (plural cabins)

1. (US) A small dwelling characteristic of the frontier, especially when built from logs with simple tools and not constructed by professional builders, but by those who meant to live in it.

   Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin.

   • 1994, Michael Grumley, “Life Drawing”, in Violet Quill:

     And that was how long we stayed in the cabin, pressed together, pulling the future out of each other, sweating and groaning and making sure each of us remembered.

2. (informal) A chalet or lodge, especially one that can hold large groups of people.
3. A private room on a ship.

   the captain's cabin:  Passengers shall remain in their cabins.

   • 1915, G[eorge] A. Birmingham [pseudonym; James Owen Hannay], chapter I, in Gossamer, New York, N.Y.: George H. Doran Company, →OCLC:

     There is an hour or two, after the passengers have embarked, which is disquieting and fussy. Mail bags, so I understand, are being put on board. Stewards, carrying cabin trunks, swarm in the corridors. Passengers wander restlessly about or hurry, with futile energy, from place to place.

4. The interior of a boat, enclosed to create a small room, particularly for sleeping.
   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter X, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

     Mr. Cooke had had a sloop yacht built at Far Harbor, the completion of which had been delayed, and which was but just delivered. […] The Maria had a cabin, which was finished in hard wood and yellow plush, and accommodations for keeping things cold.

5. The passenger area of an airplane.
6. (travel, aviation) The section of a passenger plane having the same class of service.
7. (rail transport, informal) A signal box.
8. A small room; an enclosed place.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto VI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 23:

     So long in secret cabin there he held her captive.

9. (India) A private office; particularly of a doctor, businessman, lawyer, or other professional.
   • 2008 November 15, Tony Thakaran, “Dasvidaniya: A bittersweet slice of middle-class life”, in Reuters Blogs‎:

     There’s Kaul’s boss, the overweight owner of a pharmaceutical firm who spends his days wolfing down junk food in the privacy of his cabin.

• → French: cabine (see there for further descendants)
• → Japanese: キャビン (kyabin)
• → Korean: 캐빈 (kaebin)

cabin (third-person singular simple present cabins, present participle cabining, simple past and past participle cabined)

1. (transitive) To place in a cabin or other small space.
2. (by extension) To limit the scope of.
   • 2019, Sonia Sotomayor, dissenting, Manhattan Community Access Corp. v. Halleck, page 16, note 11:

     There was a time when this Court’s precedents may have portended the kind of First Amendment liability for purely private property owners that the majority spends so much time rejecting. […] But the Court soon stanched that trend. See Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner, 407 U. S. 551, 561–567 (1972) (cabining Marsh and refusing to extend Logan Valley); Hudgens v. NLRB, 424 U. S. 507, 518 (1976) (making clear that “the rationale of Logan Valley did not survive” Lloyd).

3. (intransitive, obsolete) To live in, or as if in, a cabin; to lodge.
   • c. 1588–1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii]:

     I'll make you […] cabin in a cave.

• cabana

• “cabin”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “cabin”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “cabin”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.