Press
A cupboard - especially a built-in one in a kitchen or hallway. The standard Hiberno-English word for what English elsewhere calls a cupboard, closet, or wardrobe. 'The hot press' is the airing cupboard; 'the linen press' is for sheets and towels.
Etymology
From Middle English 'presse' (a clothespress, a press for storing folded textiles), partly from Old English 'press' (clothespress) via Medieval Latin 'pressa', and from Old French 'presse'. The same underlying word that gave English 'press' (push, newspaper) gave the storage sense. Standard English narrowed 'press' to the active and journalistic senses; Hiberno-English and Scots kept the older cabinet sense. The cupboard use is recorded as especially Irish and Scots.
In a sentence
"The clean towels are in the hot press - second shelf down."
Historical notes
Press is one of those Hiberno-English words that survive in compounds long after they fade alone: 'hot press' (= airing cupboard), 'linen press' (= linen cupboard), 'press in the hallway' (= cupboard in the hallway) are heard daily in Irish households. Asking where the hot press is in a hotel is a small test of whether anyone there knows the local language - in an Irish-run B&B the answer is upstairs; in an international chain the answer is 'the what?'
Sources
- Oxford English Dictionary, entry press n. (cupboard sense, marked especially in Ireland and Scotland). · dictionary