# Has the word "cellar" completely been overtaken by "basement?" **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 14, 2008, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-word-cellar-completely-been-overtaken-by-basement/445240 "2008-04-14T01:10:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2008, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-word-cellar-completely-been-overtaken-by-basement/445240/21 "2008-04-14T21:18:43Z")
[QUOTE=Captain\_C] See, I think of a basement being accessed from a stairwell within the house, while a cellar can only be accessed from an outside source (like those mostly-horizontal outside doors you see on old farmhouses). If it can be accessed from both, it is still a basement. [/QUOTE] That’s how I define it (I have a cellar, as defined here). A REAL cellar will ideally have a dirt floor, but mine has a cement floor. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2008, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-word-cellar-completely-been-overtaken-by-basement/445240/22 "2008-04-14T21:28:21Z")
[QUOTE=guizot] It’s the [Harvard Dialect Survey](http://www4.uwm.edu/FLL/linguistics/dialect/maps.html), but the maps which show occurrences (by self-reporting) with colored dots on a map of the U.S., are no long available on-line, it seems. [/QUOTE] Now that I’m back from that restaurant with the lousy wi-fi, it’s question [#117](http://www4.uwm.edu/FLL/linguistics/dialect/staticmaps/q_117.html) on the survey. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-word-cellar-completely-been-overtaken-by-basement/445240.md?page=1)