enclosure

noun

1. (countable)Something that is enclosed, i.e. inserted into a letter or similar package.

   “There was an enclosure with the letter — a photo.”

   “Mr Carlyle cut open the envelope, glanced at the enclosure, and in spite of his disappointment could not restrain a chuckle.”

2. (uncountable)The act of enclosing, i.e. the insertion or inclusion of an item in a letter or package.

   “The enclosure of a photo with your letter is appreciated.”

3. (countable)An area, domain, or amount of something partially or entirely enclosed by barriers.

   “He faced punishment for creating the fenced enclosure in a public park.”

   “The glass enclosure holds the mercury vapor.”

   “The winning horse was first into the unsaddling enclosure.”

   “And the village was deserted, the huts gaped black, rotting, all askew within the fallen enclosures.”

   “Away from the village, there was an enclosure containing several large animals of a kind I had not seen before—shaggy, long-necked, small-headed creatures who stood or lay at ease around their pen. Alpacas?”

4. (uncountable)The act of separating and surrounding an area, domain, or amount of something with a barrier.

   “The enclosure of public land is against the law.”

   “The experiment requires the enclosure of mercury vapor in a glass tube.”

   “At first, untrained horses resist enclosure.”

5. (broadly, uncountable)The act of restricting access to ideas, works of art or technologies using patents or intellectual property laws.

   “Copyright, from day one, was designed to be both an impediment and an incentive, a mechanism of enclosure (one that prevented the unlicensed printing of texts, thereby limiting access) and a catalyst of sorts, a structure to stimulate the production of literary goods by rewarding writers and publishers for their labor.”

   “The commons evokes resistance to “enclosure” in all its forms, whether in its early proto-capitalist form of fencing in commonly shared land, or in its contemporary forms of marshalling judicial restraints such as “patent” and “intellectual property” to police the ownership of ideas.”

6. (uncountable)The post-feudal process of subdivision of common lands for individual ownership.

   “Strip-farming disappeared after enclosure.”

7. (countable, uncountable)The area of a convent, monastery, etc where access is restricted to community members.