hoidla

Hoidla is a term in Estonian used to denote spaces or facilities for keeping things. The primary sense is a storage facility, depository, or place of safekeeping. It can refer to physical structures such as warehouses, depots, archives, storage rooms, or lockups, as well as to sections within buildings designated for keeping equipment or documents. In everyday language, hoidla may refer to any place where items are temporarily or permanently stored.

In modern Estonian, the word also appears in compound forms for digital storage. For example, andmehoidla means data repository or data storage system, and dokumentide hoidla denotes document storage or a document management system. The term can thus cover both physical and digital contexts of safekeeping.

In archival science and library and information science, hoidla describes controlled storage environments and facilities designed to protect items from damage, theft, or deterioration. Depending on context, a hoidla may be owned by a company, a government body, a library, or a private individual.

Grammatically, hoidla is a neuter noun; the plural is hoidlad. The etymology traces to the Estonian verb hoidma 'to keep' and related nouns expressing safekeeping.

See also: storage, repository, archive, safekeeping, data store, andmehoidla, dokumentide hoidla.