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Indoor/indoors

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Morbius:
I played both indoor (accepted as a common word) and indoors (not accepted) in the INDECOROUS 10 letter puzzle.  Dictionaries classify indoors as an adverb, so it isn't a plural or verb form ending in 's'.  That being the case, it should be accepted in my view. 

mkenuk:
You beat me to it, Morbius.

indoor is an adjective. Adjectives in English cannot add 's'.
indoors is an adverb [of place]; it is not the plural of 'indoor'.

Badminton is an indoor game.
It is usually played indoors.

blackrockrose:
But isn't it possible to say something like "I prefer the outdoors to the indoors"? Is 'indoors' a noun in this case?

mkenuk:
In the phrase 'the great outdoors' the word is indeed a plural noun, but I don't think there is a singular form.

Alan W:
I agree. Indoors is mostly used as an adverb, and so is not covered by the "plurals" rule. And when it is used as a noun it has no corresponding singular form indoor. In fact it is likely to be treated as a singular: "indoors is my favourite milieu", rather than "indoors are my favourite milieu". For example, the clothing site Cafe du Cycliste has a heading "Indoors is the New Outdoors".

So indoors will be accepted from now on. And let's not forget, in this lockdown epoch, that there is also an outdoors. That word will also be allowed.

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