noun
- the act of closing; the state of being closed.
- a bringing to an end; conclusion.
- something that closes or shuts.
- closer1(def 2).
- an architectural screen or parapet, especially one standing free between columns or piers.
- Phonetics. an occlusion of the vocal tract as an articulatory feature of a particular speech sound.Compare constriction(def 5).
- Parliamentary Procedure. a cloture.
- Surveying. completion of a closed traverse in such a way that the point of origin and the endpoint coincide within an acceptably small margin of error.Compare error of closure.
- Mathematics.
- the property of being closed with respect to a particular operation.
- the intersection of all closed sets that contain a given set.
- Psychology.
- the tendency to see an entire figure even though the picture of it is incomplete, based primarily on the viewer’s past experience.
- a sense of psychological certainty or completeness: a need for closure.
- Obsolete. something that encloses or shuts in; enclosure.
verb (used with or without object), clo·sured, clo·sur·ing.
- Parliamentary Procedure. to cloture.
noun
- the act of closing or the state of being closed
- an end or conclusion
- something that closes or shuts, such as a cap or seal for a container
- (in a deliberative body) a procedure by which debate may be halted and an immediate vote takenSee also cloture, guillotine, gag rule
- mainly US
- the resolution of a significant event or relationship in a person’s life
- a sense of contentment experienced after such a resolution
- geology the vertical distance between the crest of an anticline and the lowest contour that surrounds it
- phonetics the obstruction of the breath stream at some point along the vocal tract, such as the complete occlusion preliminary to the articulation of a stop
- logic
- the closed sentence formed from a given open sentence by prefixing universal or existential quantifiers to bind all its free variables
- the process of forming such a closed sentence
- maths
- the smallest closed set containing a given set
- the operation of forming such a set
- psychol the tendency, first noted by Gestalt psychologists, to see an incomplete figure like a circle with a gap in it as more complete than it is
verb
- (tr) (in a deliberative body) to end (debate) by closure
n.late 14c., “a barrier, a fence,” from Old French closure “enclosure; that which encloses, fastening, hedge, wall, fence,” also closture “barrier, division; enclosure, hedge, fence, wall” (12c., Modern French clôture), from Late Latin clausura “lock, fortress, a closing” (source of Italian chiusura), from past participle stem of Latin claudere “to close” (see close (v.)). Sense of “act of closing, bringing to a close” is from early 15c. In legislation, especially “closing or stopping of debate.” Sense of “tendency to create ordered and satisfying wholes” is 1924, from Gestalt psychology.