recess🔊

A depressed, hollow, or indented space; also, a hole or opening.

(architecture) A small space created by building part of a wall further back from the rest; a niche. +

(criminal slang) The place in a prison where the communal lavatories are located.

A hidden, innermost, or inaccessible place or part of a place.

(archaic) A place of retirement, retreat, or seclusion.

(figuratively) An obscure, remote, or secret situation.

A temporary stoppage of an activity; a break, a pause. +

(government) A period of time when the proceedings of a committee, court of law, parliament, or other official body are temporarily suspended.

(Australia, British, Canada, US, Philippines, education) A time away from studying during the school day for a meal or recreation.

(archaic) An act of retiring or withdrawing; a moving back.

(historical) A decree or resolution of the diet of the Holy Roman Empire or the Hanseatic League.

(obsolete) An act of retiring or withdrawing from public life, society, etc.; also, an act of living in retirement or seclusion, or a period of such retirement or seclusion.

(obsolete) Leisure, relaxation.

(obsolete) The state of being withdrawn.

(obsolete, figuratively) A departure from a norm or position.

(obsolete, figuratively) A time interval during which something ceases; an interruption, a respite.

(geology) An overall-concave, reentrant section of a sinuous fold and thrust belt, thrust sheet, or a single thrust fault, caused by one or more of: deformation (folding and faulting) of strata and geologic structures during orogenesis, differences in the angle of critical taper during orogenesis, or differing erosional level of the present geomorphological surface.

(obsolete, rare) Of a place or time: distant, remote.

To position (something) a distance behind another thing; to set back.

(often architecture) To make a recess in (something).

(often architecture) To inset (something) into a recess or niche.

(figuratively) To conceal, to hide.

(chiefly US, government) To temporarily suspend (a meeting, the proceedings of an official body, etc.).

(chiefly US, government, informal) To make a recess appointment in respect of (someone).

(chiefly US, government) Of a meeting, the proceedings of an official body, etc.: to adjourn, to take a break.

(chiefly US, government) Of an official body: to suspend proceedings for a period of time.