RECESS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does recess mean? 

• RECESS (noun)
  The noun RECESS has 5 senses:

1. a state of abeyance or suspended business

2. a small concavity

3. an arm off of a larger body of water (often between rocky headlands)

4. an enclosure that is set back or indented

5. a pause from doing something (as work)

  Familiarity information: RECESS used as a noun is common.

• RECESS (verb)
  The verb RECESS has 3 senses:

1. put into a recess

2. make a recess in

3. close at the end of a session

  Familiarity information: RECESS used as a verb is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• RECESS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A state of abeyance or suspended business

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

deferral; recess

Hypernyms ("recess" is a kind of...):

abeyance; suspension (temporary cessation or suspension)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A small concavity

Classified under:

Nouns denoting two and three dimensional shapes

Synonyms:

corner; niche; recess; recession

Hypernyms ("recess" is a kind of...):

concave shape; concavity; incurvation; incurvature (a shape that curves or bends inward)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "recess"):

pharyngeal recess (a small recess in the wall of the pharynx)

Derivation:

recess (make a recess in)

recess (put into a recess)

Sense 3

Meaning:

An arm off of a larger body of water (often between rocky headlands)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Synonyms:

inlet; recess

Hypernyms ("recess" is a kind of...):

body of water; water (the part of the earth's surface covered with water (such as a river or lake or ocean))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "recess"):

cove (a small inlet)

fiord; fjord (a long narrow inlet of the sea between steep cliffs; common in Norway)

loch (a long narrow inlet of the sea in Scotland (especially when it is nearly landlocked))

Instance hyponyms:

Bristol Channel (an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean between southern Wales and southwestern England)

Gulf of Aegina; Saronic Gulf (a gulf of the Aegean on the southeastern coast of Greece)

White Sea (a large inlet of the Barents Sea in the northwestern part of European Russia)

Zuider Zee (a former inlet of the North Sea in the northern coast of the Netherlands; sealed off from the sea in 1932 by a dam that created the IJsselmeer)

Holonyms ("recess" is a part of...):

lake (a body of (usually fresh) water surrounded by land)

sea (a division of an ocean or a large body of salt water partially enclosed by land)

Sense 4

Meaning:

An enclosure that is set back or indented

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

niche; recess

Hypernyms ("recess" is a kind of...):

enclosure (a structure consisting of an area that has been enclosed for some purpose)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "recess"):

alcove; bay (a small recess opening off a larger room)

apse; apsis (a domed or vaulted recess or projection on a building especially the east end of a church; usually contains the altar)

cinerarium; columbarium (a niche for a funeral urn containing the ashes of the cremated dead)

fireplace; hearth; open fireplace (an open recess in a wall at the base of a chimney where a fire can be built)

mihrab ((Islam) a niche in the wall of a mosque that indicates the direction of Mecca)

Derivation:

recess (put into a recess)

Sense 5

Meaning:

A pause from doing something (as work)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

break; recess; respite; time out

Context example:

he took time out to recuperate

Hypernyms ("recess" is a kind of...):

pause (temporary inactivity)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "recess"):

spring break (a week or more of recess during the spring term at school)

Derivation:

recess (close at the end of a session)

• RECESS (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they recess    ... he / she / it recesses   
Past simple: recessed   
Past participle: recessed   
-ing form: recessing   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Put into a recess

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Context example:

recess lights

Hypernyms (to "recess" is one way to...):

lay; place; pose; position; put; set (put into a certain place or abstract location)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

recess (an enclosure that is set back or indented)

recess (a small concavity)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Make a recess in

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Context example:

recess the piece of wood

Hypernyms (to "recess" is one way to...):

indent (notch the edge of or make jagged)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

recess (a small concavity)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Close at the end of a session

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

adjourn; break up; recess

Context example:

The court adjourned

Hypernyms (to "recess" is one way to...):

cease; end; finish; stop; terminate (have an end, in a temporal, spatial, or quantitative sense; either spatial or metaphorical)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

recess (a pause from doing something (as work))

 Context examples 

What I am describing, slumbered, and half awoke, and slept again, in the innermost recesses of my mind.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I remained in a recess of the rock, gazing on this wonderful and stupendous scene.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

And yet there were indications that even human life itself was not far from us in those mysterious recesses.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A pitlike depression or tubular recess.

(Crypt, NCI Thesaurus)

I showed him the volume on the shelf: he took it down, and withdrawing to his accustomed window recess, he began to read it.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Somewhere, stored away in the recesses of his mind and vaguely remembered, was the impression that there were people who washed their teeth every day.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

A nucleus located in the middle hypothalamus in the most ventral part of the third ventricle near the entrance of the infundibular recess.

(Arcuate Nucleus, NCI Thesaurus)

There might well be a recess behind the books.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Mr. Bhaer soon joined her, looking rather out of his element, and presently several of the philosophers, each mounted on his hobby, came ambling up to hold an intellectual tournament in the recess.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

I found Sherlock Holmes alone, however, half asleep, with his long, thin form curled up in the recesses of his armchair.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)