[kab-uh-nit] 
| 1. | a piece of furniture with shelves, drawers, etc., for holding or displaying items: a curio cabinet; a file cabinet. |
| 2. | a wall cupboard used for storage, as of kitchen utensils or toilet articles: a kitchen cabinet; a medicine cabinet. |
| 3. | a piece of furniture containing a radio or television set, usually standing on the floor and often having a record player or a place for phonograph records. |
| 4. | (often initial capital letter ) a council advising a president, sovereign, etc., esp. the group of ministers or executives responsible for the government of a nation. |
| 5. | (often initial capital letter) (in the U.S.) an advisory body to the president, consisting of the heads of the 13 executive departments of the federal government. |
| 6. | a small case with compartments for valuables or other small objects. |
| 7. | a small chamber or booth for special use, esp. a shower stall. |
| 8. | a private room. |
| 9. | a room set aside for the exhibition of small works of art or objets d'art. |
| 10. | Also called cabinet wine. a dry white wine produced in Germany from fully matured grapes without the addition of extra sugar. |
| 11. | New England (chiefly Rhode Island and Southern Massachusetts). a milk shake made with ice cream. |
| 12. | Archaic. a small room. |
| 13. | Obsolete. a small cabin. |
| 14. | pertaining to a political cabinet: a cabinet meeting. |
| 15. | private; confidential; secret. |
| 16. | pertaining to a private room. |
| 17. | of suitable value, beauty, or size for a private room, small display case, etc.: a cabinet edition of Milton. |
| 18. | of, pertaining to, or used by a cabinetmaker or in cabinetmaking. |
| 19. | Drafting. designating a method of projection (cabinet projection) in which a three-dimensional object is represented by a drawing (cabinet drawing) having all vertical and horizontal lines drawn to exact scale, with oblique lines reduced to about half scale so as to offset the appearance of distortion. Compare axonometric, isometric (def. 5), oblique (def. 13). |
| cab·i·net (kāb'ə-nĭt) n.
[French, partly from diminutive of Old North French cabine, gambling-room (perhaps alteration of Old French cabane, small house; see cabin) and partly from Italian gabinetto, closet, chest of drawers; akin to Old North French cabine. N., sense 5, possibly from the square wooden container in which the mixer was encased.] cab'i·net·ful n. |
A group of presidential advisers, composed of the heads of the fourteen government departments (the secretaries of the Department of Agriculture, Department of Commerce, Department of Defense, Department of Education, Department of Energy, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of the Interior, Department of Labor, Department of State, Department of Transportation, Department of the Treasury, Department of Veterans Affairs, and the attorney general (head of the Department of Justice) — all of whom are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate) and a few other select government officials. Theoretically, the cabinet is charged with debating major policy issues and recommending action by the executive branch; the actual influence of the cabinet, however, is limited by competition from other advisory staffs.