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Is it "a trapdoor" or "trapdoors" for one opening with two or more doors covering it? One example is the one(s) covering Black Horse Inn's cellar.

Clearly it is plural when there are two or more separate openings each covered by one or more doors, and it is singular when there is one opening covered by one door. Cambridge Dictionary says a trapdoor is "a small door in a ceiling or floor", and Merriam Webster and Oxford similarly describe a single door covering a single opening. The title on the Black Horse Inn Cellar example image refers to a "trap door", which is singular but also an open compound word rather than a closed compound word.

I cannot find an official reference disambiguating this, so perhaps either way is correct?

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  • The door in the image is commonly known as a "bulkhead" door in the US.
    – Hot Licks
    Commented Sep 27, 2020 at 22:25
  • @HotLicks I'm from the Midwest US and have only ever heard "bulkhead" in the context of ships. But the US is a big place, so this could be common in another region.
    – Micah Lindstrom
    Commented Sep 28, 2020 at 0:17
  • @MicahLindstrom There is usually a bulkhead in a car, it's the panel that separates the passenger compartment from the engine compartment. Usually the steering wheel and the pedals pass though holes in it but are also supported by it.
    – BoldBen
    Commented Sep 28, 2020 at 0:50
  • Don't trap doors have to open downward?
    – Phil Sweet
    Commented Sep 28, 2020 at 10:07
  • Try cellar doors
    – Phil Sweet
    Commented Sep 28, 2020 at 10:15

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"Trapdoor" works like "door":

If I say "Go through the door to the kitchen", I do not expect you break through the door itself. "Door" = (i) door: a flat piece of wood that blocks a hole. (ii) a doorway: the hole in the wall blocked by a door.

Thus a trapdoor is both (i) a single door covering a hole (ii) the hole concealed or blocked by one or more doors.

The construction "The door/doors of the trapdoor were locked" is valid.

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  • To be clear, you're saying it's "trapdoor" for any single opening, and "trapdoors" for multiple openings, regardless of number of doors. Your explanation makes sense and is easy to remember, where trapdoor simply refers to the doorway.
    – Micah Lindstrom
    Commented Oct 3, 2020 at 3:41
  • Yes that's right. Any trapdoor may have one or more [trap]doors.
    – Greybeard
    Commented Oct 3, 2020 at 7:25

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