A wooden cabinet or frame used to press and store clothes, keeping them neat and wrinkle-free.
From clothes + press (a device for flattening or compressing). The clothespress was a furniture piece from the 1700s-1800s, serving the combined function of clothes storage and pressing before electric irons became common.
The clothespress is a forgotten piece of furniture that once occupied the bedroom of every middle-class household—it represents a time when clothes storage and pressing were considered so important that they warranted special furniture, unlike today's approach to just throw everything in a closet.
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