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enclave

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enclave

  • /ˈɛnkleɪv/ UK
  • /ˈɛŋkleɪv/ UK
  • /ˈɒ̃kleɪv/ UK
  • /ˈɒnkleɪv/ UK
  • /ˈɒŋkleɪv/ UK
  • /ˈɑnkleɪv/ US
  • /ˈɛnkleɪv/ US
  • /ˈɑŋkleɪv/ US

Rhymes with -ɛnkleɪv, -ɛŋkleɪv, -ɒnkleɪv

Where it comes from

Borrowed from French enclave, from Middle French enclave (“enclave”), deverbal of enclaver (“to inclose”), from Old French enclaver (“to inclose, lock in”), from Vulgar Latin *inclāvāre (“to lock in”), from in + Latin clavis (“key”) or clavus (“nail, bolt”). Compare inlock.

noun enclaves

  1. A political, cultural or social entity or part thereof that is completely surrounded by another. The Republic of San Marino is an enclave of Italy.
  2. A group that is set off from a larger population by its characteristic or behavior. They were learning to do what in all my years in the music business I never saw — which was women running a record company, women producing concerts, women learning to be engineers, women moving into this absolutely all-male enclave. You never saw a woman in any of those positions, in any of that wo
  3. An isolated portion of an application's address space, such that data in an enclave can only be accessed by code in the same enclave. When an enclave spans a system boundary in a sysplex, it is called a multisystem enclave.

verb enclaves · enclaving · enclaved

  1. transitive To enclose within a foreign territory.

Thesaurus

Closest in meaning: neighborhood, landlocked, epa, zone, macao, jeep, pocket, jericho, oblast, kurdistan, bosnia, site, panhandle, pregnant, island, macau

Translations

Every language

noun entity completely surrounded by another

Españolenclave
中文飛地 /飞地 fēidì
Portuguêsenclave
Françaisenclave
DeutschEnklave
Italianoenclave
Русскийанкла́в ankláv

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Cite this
MLA

"enclave." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/enclave. Accessed 5 Nov. 2026.

APA

enclave. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/enclave

Chicago

"enclave." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 5, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/enclave.

BibTeX
@misc{enclave_2026,
  title = {enclave},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/enclave},
  urldate = {2026-11-05}
}