▪ I. closure
(ˈkləʊʒ(j)ʊə(r))
Also 5 closser, 6 cloasure.
[a. OF. closure that which encloses, a barrier:—L. clausūra, f. stem claus- of claud-ĕre to shut, close: see -ure. Sense 3 arose, partly at least, by phonetic confusion with closer n.1, although it might have been developed independently: cf. aperture, structure, etc.]
† 1. a. That which encloses, shuts in, or confines; a fence, wall, barrier, case, cover, setting, etc. Obs.
| c 1386 Chaucer Pars. T. ¶796 Beestes..that breketh the hegge or the closure [v.r. of the closur(e, closeure, clausure]. 1489 Caxton Faytes of A. i. xiii. 35 With dyches and palis..and wyth closures made of tymbre. 1568 Grafton Chron. II. 477 [They] opened the Barres and Closure. 1590 Greene Fr. Bacon (1630) 44 Scrowles..Wrapt in rich closures of fine burnisht gold. 1670 W. Simpson Hydrol. Ess. 121 An avolation of spirituous parts through all vessels and closures. 1833 J. Holland Manuf. Metals (Cabinet Cycl.) II. 181 So as to form a closure about the case. 1871 B. Taylor Faust i. (1875) I. 20 The spirit world no closures fasten. |
† b. more generally: Bound, limit, circuit. Obs.
| 1594 Shakes. Rich. III, iii. iii. 11 Within the guiltie Closure of thy Walls. 1613 Heywood Brazen Age ii. ii. Wks. 1874 III. 236 [I will] catch them [birds] in the closure of this wire. 1640 G. Sandys Christ's Passion 54 That fatal Ark..whose closure held Those two-leav'd Tables. |
† 2. An entrenchment, fortress, fort. [So in late L.] Obs.
| a 1400–50 Alexander 4890 Vp-on þe cop of þe cliffe a closure he fyndis, A palais. a 1470 Tiptoft Cæsar xii. (1530) 15 One fortresse or closure both for them and for his campe. 1577–87 Holinshed Chron. I. 146/2 Alured..going foorth of his closure, repaired to the campe of the Danish king. 1594 Greene, etc. Looking Glasse (1861) 123 Hide me in closure. |
† 3. An enclosed place. Obs.
| [Cf. 1386 in 1.] 1496–7 Act 12 Hen. VII, c. 11 §2 The seid Manoirs with their..Medowes, Pastures, Closures, Woodis. 1598 J. Manwood Lawes Forest xxiv. § 5 (1615) 248 b, Any Coppies or Closure in the Purlieu, estraitening the Kings Deere from the Forest. 1609 Bible (Douay) Ezek. xlii. 7 An utter closure according to the celles. |
† 4. The act of enclosing, shutting up, or confining; enclosure; the fact or condition of being enclosed or shut up. Obs.
| c 1420 Pallad. on Husb. i. 805 Now rayle hem, and of closure is noo doute. 1538 Churchw. Acc. St. Dunstan's, Canterb., A lode of thornes for closure of the seid house. 1592 W. Wyrley Armorie iii. 154 My closure I with great impatience tooke. 1647 Husbandman's Plea agst. Tithes 35 In the chiltern parts of Buckinghamshire and Harfordshire, where the Land lyes in closure. a 1711 Ken Edmund Poet. Wks. 1721 II. 39 In sacred Convents every glad Recluse Thought it no Crime from Closure to break loose. |
5. a. The act of closing or shutting.
| 1600 Holland Livy Transl. Pref. 2 Before Augustus's second closure thereof [i.e. of the temple of Janus]. 1676 Temple Let. Williamson Wks. 1731 II. 385 Before the Closure of this Pacquet. 1756 Nugent Gr. Tour, France IV. 103 The closure and the re-opening of the theatre. 1855 Bain Senses & Int. i. ii. (1864) 64 The wire must be acted on at both ends, by the closure of the circuit. 1879 Carpenter Ment. Phys. i. ii. 29 The closure of the fingers in grasping. |
b. Closed condition.
| 1845 Ld. Campbell Chancellors (1857) I. xiii. 198 These straws..distend the book from its accustomed closure. 1887 J. Payn in New York Independent XXXIX. 1064 After fourteen months of closure. |
c. Phonetics. Any position of articulation in which, or the extent to which, some part of the speech mechanism is moved towards another so as partially or wholly to block the current of air.
| 1867 A. M. Bell Visible Speech 60 An ‘outer’ formation, or closure of the super-glottal passage.., yields a distinct percussion. 1877 H. Sweet Handbk. Phonetics 85 In English, when a stop follows a vowel,..nothing is heard but part of the glide on to the consonant, the actual closure being formed without any breath at all. 1933 Bloomfield Lang. vi. 103 [In] Southern British English..the degrees of closure of the vowels in words like up and odd are the reverse of ours. 1964 R. H. Robins Gen. Linguistics iii. 99 Palatal plosives, in which the front of the tongue makes closure with the hard palate. |
† 6. An agreeing upon terms, a coming to an arrangement with; agreement, union, unity. Cf. close v. 14. Obs.
| 1647 J. Saltmarsh Sparkl. Glory (1847) 148 In a pure spiritual closure, or unity of Spirit. 1649 Cromwell Let. lxi. 14 Mar. (Carlyle), So much do I desire a closure with you. 1659 Rushw. Hist. Coll. I. 73 The Catholick King..pretended so much zeal to a Closure with England. 1668 Howe Bless. Righteous (1825) 179 This..draws the..Soul into a closure and league with him. |
† 7. a. The part or means by which anything is closed or fastened; a fastening, attachment. Obs.
| 1616–61 B. Holyday Persius 331 Claverius thinks that the knot or closure was adorn'd with some bright gemme. 1641 French Distill. v. (1651) 134 Lute the closures with potters earth. 1685 J. Cooke Marrow of Chirurg. (ed. 4) iii. i. 166 After which, put a Closure [i.e. napkin or diaper] to the Woman. a 1744 Pope Let. Swift (J.), Without a seal, wafer, or any closure whatever. |
† b. Applied to the fontanels of the skull. rare.
| 1569 R. Androse tr. Alexis' Secr. iv. ii. 41 Make a plaister, and put it vpon the cloasure of children. Ibid. iv. ii. 58 Lay it vpon the closure of the pacients heade. |
† c. Arch. (See quot.) Obs.
| 1611 Cotgr., Lanterne..also, the scutcheon or closure of a Tymber vault, where the ends of the branches thereof doe meet. 1770 Lloyd in Phil. Trans. LXI. 253, I could find no closure of the dome. |
† d. A composition for closing the openings of vessels, a luting. Obs.
| 1641 French Distill. i. (1651) 4 Take Loam and the white of an Egge, mix them into a Past..This..is a good closure. |
e. Building. The arrangement of bricks or stones at the end or corner of a wall, etc.; also † = closer2 3, q.v. for quot.
| 1881 Mechanic 546 The closure at the reveal should be a bond closure. |
8. a. A bringing to a conclusion; end, close.
| 1588 Shakes. Tit. A. v. iii. 134 Make a mutuall closure of our house. 1616 T. Godwin Moses & Aaron (1655) 220 The feast of Pentecost which was the end and closure of their harvest. 1676 Row Contn. Blair's Autobiog. xii. (1848) 511 The treaty would come to a peaceable closure against that time. 1870 E. H. Pember Trag. Lesbos vii. 110 The point that brings the closure of thine own Marks but the outset of my suffering. |
b. Cricket. The act or right of declaring an innings closed; also = closure rule (see below).
| 1904 R. S. Holmes Hist. Yorks. Co. Cr. viii. 101 It was in this match [Yorkshire v. Cambridge University, 1894] that the Light Blue captain put the closure into force. |
9. spec. The closing of a debate in a legislative assembly by vote of the house or by other competent authority.
On the first introduction of rules giving the House of Commons this power in 1882 the principle was often called the clôture, the name applied to it in the French Assembly.
| 1882 Pall Mall G. 16 Feb. 1/2 What is the Closure? The right of the House of Commons to say that a debate shall close when discussion has been exhausted. 1887 Ibid. 10 May 1/1 To get through the seven lines took nearly twelve hours and three closures. 1887 Spectator 28 May 722/1 On Monday night the Closure was applied four times. |
10. In Gestalt psychology, the process whereby incomplete forms, situations, etc., are completed subjectively by the viewer or seem to complete themselves; the tendency to create ordered and satisfying wholes. Also attrib.
| 1924 R. M. Ogden tr. Koffka's Growth of Mind iii. 103 Phenomena occur in connections determined by peculiar inherent laws of relationship which have to do with ‘closure’ and ‘non-closure’. 1925 I. A. Richards Princ. Lit. Crit. 107 The perception of an object and the recognition that it is a tree..involve a poise in the sensory system concerned, a certain completeness or ‘closure’. 1934 Brit. Jrnl. Psychol. July 38 In the child with high intelligence, the disposition to create order is strong enough to work with less vivid material and such a child will experience a strong Prägnanz and ‘closure’. 1951 G. Humphrey Thinking 175 The tendency of an incomplete configuration to complete itself, the tendency, that is, towards closure. 1964 A. Koestler in Listener 14 May 787/2 According to Gestalt theory, we solve abstract problems by applying the ‘closure principle’; the solution closes the gap. |
11. attrib., as closure rule Cricket, the rule that allows captain to ‘declare’ (see declare v. 11 b).
| 1897 W. J. Ford in K. S. Ranjitsinhji Jubilee Bk. Cr. ix. 346 Most of the matches last for a day only, so that the ‘closure’ rule was a boon and a blessing. |
Senses 10, 11 in Dict. become 11, 12. Add: [5.] d. Surveying. The act of closing a traverse by surveying a line back to the position from which the traverse was started. Esp. in phr. error of closure = misclosure n.; also transf., any discrepancy between an initial and final estimate or measurement of a quantity.
| 1902 P. M. Nugent Plane Surveying iii. 41 The ratio of the error of closure to the sum of the measured lengths of all the lines in the closed traverse is known as the ‘ratio of closure’. 1981 Sci. Amer. Nov. 37/3 The difference between the precensus estimate and the actual count is known as the error of closure. It is the magnitude of the error of closure in the 1980 census that has most surprised demographers. |
10. Math. The property of being closed (closed ppl. a. 2 a, b); also (const. of), the smallest closed set containing a given set. point of closure: a point which is such that any neighbourhood of it meets a given set (const. of).
| 1905 Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. VI. 165 (heading) Dedekind postulate of closure. 1910 E. H. Moore in New Haven Math. Colloq. (Amer. Math. Soc.) 37 A class 𝔐 having the property C𝔐 of being closed to itself has the property C, and conversely. The notation C and the designation closure are preferable to the S-C and self-closure originally used. 1937 G. Birkhoff in Ann. Math. XXXVIII. 39 The ‘closure’ {Smac} of any subset S of ordinary space is composed of the limits of the convergent sequences of points of S. 1956 E. M. Patterson Topology ii. 29 The set of points of closure of X is called the closure of X. 1974 G. Reece tr. Hund's Hist. Quantum Theory viii. 109 The periodic system is thus explained by the application of a closure law. 1977 Nature 8 Dec. 500/1 A black hole is the closure of the topologically smallest future set I+ such that [etc.]. 1986 P. C. West Introd. Supersymmetry & Supergravity vi. 25 Closure confirms the choice of one auxiliary field, D which is a pseudoscalar and requires a = +1. |
▸ orig. U.S. A sense of personal resolution; a feeling that an emotionally difficult experience has been conclusively settled or accepted. In early use chiefly Psychoanal.
| 1970 Amer. Jrnl. Psychiatry 127 286 A follow-up meeting several weeks after the marathon [group meeting] helped to provide closure to the experience. 1987 Social Casewk. 68 546/2 The social worker's goal should be to help bring closure to relationships in such a way as to minimize unresolved feelings and issues. 1993 Coloradoan (Fort Collins) 9 May a7/3 The memorial was intended to provide ‘closure’ in the officers' minds. 2003 Here's Health Sept. 73/1 Now all I think about is him and I don't want anyone else. How can I get some closure so I can move on with my life? |
▪ II. closure, v.
[f. prec. n., sense 9.]
trans. To apply the closure to (a debate or speaker).
| 1887 Pall Mall G. 2 Apr. 8 Going on protesting against this bill until we have been closured upon every stage. 1887 Times 30 May 9/1 Closured in the House of Commons..the voice of truth and justice ought to have rung out to-day. 1888 A. J. Balfour in Times 20 July 8/2 He never had any desire to closure this debate to-night. |