We call it "cubbyhole" too, and I live in Indiana. I spent a bit of time trying to figure out what kind of animal a cubby was before I realized that wasn't the right answer.
When I was a kid my Irish mother used 'Cubby Hole' for a space in the wall between a set of drawers and a linen cupboard that the cat used to sleep in. That's the only time I've heard it. Pigeon hole was used for any set of little partitioned boxes such as those for keys at a hotel desk.
I heard monkeyshines quite a bit when I was a kid in the '50s and '60s, but I haven't heard the term in years. It was usually in the context of, "If you don't stop those monkeyshines you are gonna get it!"
Here in New Zealand we call it a pigeon hole although our true meaning of it is somewhere you hand in late homework. You go into the staff room (What you Americans know as a 'faculty room') and put your overdue homework in that respective teacher's pigeon hole
In the United States the only way I've heard the term "pigeonhole" used is as a verb, meaning to put something into an overly restrictive category, to categorize in a limiting way, to assume and minimize, to typecast.
I was exposed to a definition more similar to what's on the quiz only when working overseas for a company staffed mostly by Brits and that's what they called out staff mailboxes.
Yeah, we use your first definition, as a verb, to assign to a particular or specific category. Also at the university I attended the mail was sorted into pigeonholes, depending upon the starting letter of your surname, kind of like an open mailbox, sorted alphabetically. The desk thing - never heard of that.
'Pigeonhole' must be British then, seems like none of the american people use the word. In England we use it instead of 'cubbyhole'. But I have no idea what Jaywalking is...
I know the word, but the meaning I've learned is more akin to "categorize or classify someone or something, often in a misleading or incorrect manner". Never heard it refer to a place for papers.
This is the best explanation I found for the origin of the word. http://askville.amazon.com/word-pigeonhole-originate-reason/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=10944260
In medieval times pigeons were kept for meat, and their cotes were often attached to the houses. A small opening in the wall made it possible to feed and water them or grab one for dinner. In the 1700s desks were made with small compartments which had doors resembling the openings to the earlier pigeon "holes" in the wall, and they came to be known as pigeonholes. It became a verb in the mid-1800s meaning to classify or compartmentalize something.
To me, the most common use of pigeonhole is definitely the metaphorical use "to narrowly categorize." I think they key aspect of a person feeling pigeonholed is the rigidness and narrowness of the categorization, not necessarily that it is inaccurate. While I can certainly see how cubbyholes in a desk look like a literal pigeonhole, I have never heard that usage personally. I'm from the northwest of the US.
I’m British and am familiar with the use of pigeonhole to describe a partition for individual mail at an institution or hotel, and cubbyhole to describe a small space such as a cubicle or cupboard big enough for a person to occupy.
I thought it was because they were dogging. Like tracking down the enemy (like hunting dogs). So chasing eachother and twisting turning trying to outmanoeuvre eachother
Pigeonhole as in to put people in a category or stereotype them is the more common use of the word today, however when the term was coined in the 1840's it was used to describe a small cubbyhole in a desk. Likely, it morphed from the cubbyhole itself to the verb meaning to stick something in the hole and then to categorizing someone.
The average number of words native English speaker use is estimated at 20,000 to 30,000 but, there are over 1,025,109 words in the language (and growing) so we shouldn't expect to know them all.
The first thing I thought when I saw that (or maybe the second time because I think I thought it when reading the comments and not the answers. Was (monkey)shenanigans. Everytime the word was mentioned in the comments I couldnt help but "hearing"that.
never heard the terms "monkeyshine," "henpeck," or "camelback" in my life. ever. also, i've never heard the term "pigeonhole" used for the description given. i've only heard it used to describe the act of unfairly categorizing someone in some way.
I was exposed to a definition more similar to what's on the quiz only when working overseas for a company staffed mostly by Brits and that's what they called out staff mailboxes.
In medieval times pigeons were kept for meat, and their cotes were often attached to the houses. A small opening in the wall made it possible to feed and water them or grab one for dinner. In the 1700s desks were made with small compartments which had doors resembling the openings to the earlier pigeon "holes" in the wall, and they came to be known as pigeonholes. It became a verb in the mid-1800s meaning to classify or compartmentalize something.
The average number of words native English speaker use is estimated at 20,000 to 30,000 but, there are over 1,025,109 words in the language (and growing) so we shouldn't expect to know them all.
And ofcourse it makes you think of moonshine.