1953, in psychological writing, in reference to experiments involving passages from which words have been omitted and are supplied by the test subject, evidently abstracted from the pronunciation of closure.
Entries linking to cloze
closure n.
late 14c., "a barrier, a fence," from Old French closure "enclosure; that which encloses, fastening, hedge, wall, fence," also closture "barrier, division; enclosure, hedge, fence, wall" (12c., Modern French clôture), from Late Latin clausura "lock, fortress, a closing" (source of Italian chiusura), from past participle stem of Latin claudere "to close" (see close (v.)).
Sense of "act of closing, a bringing to a close" is from early 15c. In legislation, especially "closing or stopping of debate" (compare cloture). Sense of "tendency to create ordered and satisfying wholes" is 1924, from Gestalt psychology.