walk-in

walk-in (plural walk-ins)

1. A facility or room which may be walked into:
   1. A relatively small room (such as a closet or pantry) or refrigerator or freezer that is spacious enough to walk into.
   2. A relatively larger room or (especially) an apartment that is entered directly, not via an intervening passage or lobby.

      a walk-in bathroom, a walk-in apartment, lived in a walk-in on Lime Street

      • 1993, Reports of Cases Decided in the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York:

        As Officer Byrne watched the front of the building he observed about ten people enter and leave a walk-in apartment unrelated to the buy and bust operation.

   3. A facility or an event that principally handles customers who do not have an appointment.

      Most teen clinics are walk-ins.

      An increasing demand for skills in niche technologies coupled with higher attrition have prompted these software services firms to organise walk-ins for technology talent too.

   4. A facility accessed on foot rather than by car, usually contrasted to drive-in.
      • 1925, Domestic Commerce Series‎, page 32:

        This consideration applies to the location of all types of petroleum-solvent cleaning plants, whether operated as delivery plants, drive-ins, walk-ins, or wholesale establishments.

      • 1961, “Drive-ins Booming: Highway restaurants now a $6 billion annual business.”, in Financial World‎, volume 115, page 1060:

        As most of the food is prepackaged and frozen, and anyone can cook a hamburger or make a malted, drive-in payrolls run a full third under those for "walk-ins"

      • 1971, Vogue‎, volume 157, page 466:

        Walk-ins are not like drive-ins, which freeze or isolate the individual in his eco-damaging armour-tool. Walk-ins are freewheeling playgrounds for the naked ape.

      • 1978, Trade Regulation Series‎, volume 12, number 5, page 327:

        It is undisputed this method of distribution and exhibition would insulate drive-ins from competing with walk-ins for licenses to exhibit first-run pictures, thereby resulting in less film rental to the distributors from the drive-ins.

2. Someone who walks in (to a place, etc):
   1. A customer, job applicant or similar who visits a restaurant, medical facility, car dealership, etc. without a reservation, appointment, or referral.
      • 1996, Kazuo Nishiyama, Welcoming the Japanese visitor: insights, tips, tactics (page 85)

        An astute manager will have a table or two set aside for important regular customers or demanding walk-ins.

      • 1996, Susan L. Diamond, Hard Labor‎, page 275:

        Any patient with such a history and any woman who has not received prenatal care or who is a walk-in—an unexpected patient with no prenatal chart—will have toxicology labs done,

      • 2019 May 3, “As the roads to addiction differ, so do the paths to recovery”, in The Laconia Daily Sun:

        others may be getting their first medication through the new Doorway program at Lakes Region General Hospital, which works with walk-ins as well as people referred by the state's 2-1-1 health services crisis line.

   2. A defector (or similar) who walks into an embassy (etc) unannounced.
      • 2007 April 10, "Who Killed Ashraf Marwan?," The New York Times (retrieved 18 September 2015):

        Still, a rapidly formed working group of Mossad wise men debated the risk in dealing with a walk-in, a volunteer who shows up bearing gifts.

3. A demonstration or protest in which the participants assemble outside a facility, gain media exposure, and enter the facility in unison.
4. (parapsychology) A person whose original soul has departed the body and been replaced with another.

walk-in (not comparable)

1. That may be walked into:
   1. (of a place) That people may enter without a prior appointment.
      • 2014, Ruzwana Bashir, "The untold story of how a culture of shame perpetuates abuse. I know, I was a victim", The Guardian, 29 August 2014:

        On multiple occasions, beginning when she was 12, Sara went to her local GP and to walk-in clinics wearing her hijab to get the morning-after pill.

   2. (US, of a facility) Accessed by walking, either exclusively, as a campground, or together with drive-in access, as at some drive-in movie theaters.
      • 2007, Fred Dow, ‎Suzanne Dow, U. S. National Forest Campground Guide‎:

        Aspen is a walk-in tent campground with sites tucked in among the pine

   3. (of a closet, pantry, refrigerator, freezer, etc) Spacious enough to walk into.
      • 1999, Cruise Travel, page 47:

        Our roomy superior category double looked out onto the open wraparound promenade through one-way glass that reversed its view at night. The closet was walk-in, and the bath had a full tub. The TV brought in both the BBC and Euronews, ...

      • 2011, Paradise Avenger, The Breaking of Poisonwood, Xlibris Corporation (→ISBN), page 80:

        The closet was walk-in, but all the clothes had been shoved to one side over a low dresser. The other side was consumed by shelves spanning from floor to ceiling. Arranged on the shelves were boxes of every shape and size neatly labeled ...

      • 2017, K M Randall, Blue Sun, AuthorHouse (→ISBN)

        My closet was walk-in with plenty of hanging space and drawers, but most of my clothes ended up on the floor anyway.

   4. Designed to be possible to walk into (without stepping over a ledge, etc).

      a walk-in bathtub

      • 2016, Douglas E Roff, Jacob A Roff, Cryptid: Discovery, BookBaby (→ISBN)

        “The shower is walk in, multiple showerheads and a tiled bench. Take your time, I installed one of those perpetual hot water heaters, so you can have an endless experience. If you're not out in an hour, I'll call 911.”

      • 2018, Forrest Steele, Never Again, Seriously, Archway Publishing (→ISBN):

        Eighteen-inch ceramic tiles, laid diagonally, made the home seem bigger. Opposite the kitchen was the bedroom wing with a master suite plus two other bedrooms, each having its own bath. All the showers were walk-in.

2. (of a thief or theft) Gaining access through unlocked doors.
   • 1976, Warner A. Eliot, John R. Strack, Alice E. Witter, National Institute of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice. National Evaluation Program, Mitre Corporation, Early-warning robbery reduction projects: an assessment of performance, section II, § A, page 6:

     [...] (locations, that are vulnerable to walk-in robbery), which makes isolation of the value from UCR statistics impossible.

   • 2010, Andrew Ashworth, Sentencing and Criminal Justice, Cambridge University Press (→ISBN), page 137:

     [...], not least because the offence can vary from a quick walk-in theft to planned and targeted plundering.

• walk-up

• OED 2nd edition 1989
• walk-in at OneLook Dictionary Search

• Kinlaw