ajar
slightly open
TRANSLATION
ajar = angelehnt, halb offen door ajar = angelehnte Tür to leave something ajar = anlehnen (woerterbuch.info) --- GOOGLE INDEX ajar: approximately 2,490,000 hits
STATISTICS
IN THE PRESS
They sit on their beds in a barracks on the outskirts of the city, waiting. The door is AJAR, revealing a cloudless late spring day in Tirana, Albania, where it promises to be a hot day.
(der Spiegel English online edition)
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The courage of the poet is to keep AJAR the door that leads into madness.
- Christopher Morley
(der Spiegel English online edition)
---
The courage of the poet is to keep AJAR the door that leads into madness.
- Christopher Morley
Did you
know?
ajar
adverb, adjective
- slightly open (of a window or door)
(Compact Oxford English Dictionary)
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WORD ORIGIN
Etymology: from around 1718; an alteration of Scottish dialect "a char", a contraction of the earlier (1500s) "on char" meaning slightly open. (from The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology)
The original meaning of ajar refers to leaving something slightly open in a literal sense, such as in this passage from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s "From Twice Told Tales":
"In the obscurest corner of the room stood a tall and narrow oaken closet, with its door ajar, within which doubtfully appeared a skeleton."
Incidentally, having a skeleton in the closet is a figure of speech that describes something in your past that you wish to keep secret. But we digress…
Ajar is a peculiar adjective form used only in conjunction with connective verbs like be, become, seem, remain, find or leave. For instance:
- He left the door ajar
- The window seemed to be ajar
- The rear entrance to the building remained ajar
- When we returned home, we found the garage door ajar
Although it can be used as an adverb, the –ly suffix is never added. English adjectives bearing the prefix a- exhibit the same behaviour: aglow, afloat, aboard, adrift, etc.
Apart from its literal application, ajar is also used in a figurative sense to mean being open to an idea in the future, leaving something open for discussion or making way for something to happen in the future:
- It appears that the door has been left ajar to allow for development on environmentally significant lands
- The Bank of England left the door ajar for another interest rate increase next year
- The company left the door ajar for further merger talks
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SYNONYMS
open, unclosed, unshut, unlatched
(Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus)
---
ANTONYMS
closed, wide open
(Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus)
---
IMPRESS YOUR FRIENDS TODAY
say something like:
"I left the car door ajar last night and by the time I got ready to drive to work this morning, the battery was dead."
adverb, adjective
- slightly open (of a window or door)
(Compact Oxford English Dictionary)
---
WORD ORIGIN
Etymology: from around 1718; an alteration of Scottish dialect "a char", a contraction of the earlier (1500s) "on char" meaning slightly open. (from The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology)
The original meaning of ajar refers to leaving something slightly open in a literal sense, such as in this passage from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s "From Twice Told Tales":
"In the obscurest corner of the room stood a tall and narrow oaken closet, with its door ajar, within which doubtfully appeared a skeleton."
Incidentally, having a skeleton in the closet is a figure of speech that describes something in your past that you wish to keep secret. But we digress…
Ajar is a peculiar adjective form used only in conjunction with connective verbs like be, become, seem, remain, find or leave. For instance:
- He left the door ajar
- The window seemed to be ajar
- The rear entrance to the building remained ajar
- When we returned home, we found the garage door ajar
Although it can be used as an adverb, the –ly suffix is never added. English adjectives bearing the prefix a- exhibit the same behaviour: aglow, afloat, aboard, adrift, etc.
Apart from its literal application, ajar is also used in a figurative sense to mean being open to an idea in the future, leaving something open for discussion or making way for something to happen in the future:
- It appears that the door has been left ajar to allow for development on environmentally significant lands
- The Bank of England left the door ajar for another interest rate increase next year
- The company left the door ajar for further merger talks
---
SYNONYMS
open, unclosed, unshut, unlatched
(Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus)
---
ANTONYMS
closed, wide open
(Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus)
---
IMPRESS YOUR FRIENDS TODAY
say something like:
"I left the car door ajar last night and by the time I got ready to drive to work this morning, the battery was dead."
