When is it a Bedroom?

In the Realtor community, the definition of a bedroom was always: a room with a closet. My nearly 40 years of selling homes and using this meaning was recently corrected in an article by John Schneider, in his "All About Homes" column. Schneider is a licensed contractor, and he cited the Universal Building Code as saying that a bedroom is one used primarily for sleeping, and complying to several health and safety requirements. These include natural light and ventilation, an installed source of heat, electrical outlets, and a way to escape in case of fire or other emergency. Because of the potential for fire and the possible spread of gas fumes, there can be no door or window leading to the garage from a bedroom. (This is interesting, because there are local homes built by AHG that have this setup.)
There are other, more detailed requirements in the code, but nowhere in the list is the necessity for the bedroom to have a closet. We learn something every day!