What does cellaret mean?
A cellaret is a small cabinet, chest, or stand designed specifically for storing wine bottles or decanters, usually kept in the dining room near the sideboard. Popular during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, cellarets were often handsome pieces of mahogany, satinwood, or silver-plated metal, and many were lined with lead or zinc compartments that could be packed with ice to chill the wine before serving. The word is simply a diminutive of cellar, meaning a little cellar — a fitting name for a piece of furniture that brought the coolness of the wine store into the dining room. Today, cellaret survives mainly in the vocabulary of antiques dealers, collectors, and writers on interior history, where it evokes formal entertaining and Georgian craftsmanship. For anyone describing period furniture or historical dining customs, it is the precise, authoritative term for this elegant wine-holding fixture.
nounA small cabinet or case, typically standing on legs and often of fine furniture quality, used for storing bottles or decanters of wine; a portable wine cooler.
- A small cabinet, case, or stand for storing wine bottles or decanters, often placed under or beside a dining-room sideboard.
- A container or compartment, sometimes fitted with metal liners for cooling, used to chill wine at table.
"The Georgian sideboard was flanked by a mahogany cellaret fitted to hold a dozen bottles."
"An antique cellaret with brass handles sat discreetly beneath the sideboard."
"The butler wheeled in a silver-plated cellaret packed with ice and claret."
The regular plural is cellarets; 'cellarettes' also appears due to the variant spelling of the singular.
"The collection included several George III cellarets in varying states of restoration."
Before the icebox, wealthy Georgians kept their wine cool in an elegant little cabinet called a cellaret — essentially furniture with a drinking problem.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of cellaret
Cellaret derives from the Latin cella, meaning a small room or storeroom, which also gives us cellar and its relatives such as cellarage. Formed as a diminutive of cellar, the word entered English around the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century, when dedicated wine cabinets became fashionable items of dining-room furniture. Its Latin root also underlies words like cellule and cell itself, all conveying the idea of a small enclosed space.
Related word forms
How cellaret is actually used
Cellaret is chiefly found in discussions of antique furniture and formal dining, so it carries a refined, slightly archaic connotation. The spelling 'cellarette' is a common variant. It is a relatively rare word in everyday modern English, appearing mostly in auction catalogues, design writing, and historical fiction.
Easily confused with cellaret
A cellar is an entire underground room for storage, while a cellaret is a small piece of furniture that holds wine bottles.
Despite the similar '-aret' ending suggesting a small version of something, a cellaret holds wine rather than cigarettes.