Wardrobe, in furniture, a large cupboard, usually equipped with drawers, a mirror, and other devices, used for storing clothes.
The word wardrobe has a long and varied history. Geoffrey Chaucer used it to mean a lavatory, and for some time it signified not a piece of furniture but a room or apartment; in medieval England, for instance, the king’s wardrobe was the centre of a good deal of administrative machinery. The actual piece of furniture in which clothes were kept was originally known as a press, and at quite an early date its division into two parts one for hanging garments, the other for laying them out flat became established.