cottage

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See also: Cottage

English

A thatched cottage in Herefordshire, United Kingdom.
A public toilet in London, United Kingdom.

Etymology

Late Middle English, from Anglo-Norman cotage and Medieval Latin cotagium, from Old Northern French cot, cote (“hut, cottage”) + -age (“surrounding property”), from Proto-Germanic *kutan, *kuta- (“shed”), probably of non-Indo-European origin, possibly borrowed from Uralic; compare Finnish kota (“hut, house”) and Hungarian ház (“house”), both from Proto-Finno-Ugric/Proto-Uralic *kota. However, also compare Dutch and English hut.

Old Northern French cote is probably from Old Norse kot (“hut”), cognate of Old English cot of same Proto-Germanic origin.

Slang sense “public toilet” from 19th century, due to resemblance.

Pronunciation

Noun

cottage (plural cottages)

  1. A small house.
    Synonyms: cot, hut
  2. A seasonal home of any size or stature, a recreational home or a home in a remote location.
    Most cottages in the area were larger and more elaborate than my home.
    • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
      Thinks I to myself, “Sol, you're run off your course again. This is a rich man's summer ‘cottage’ and if you don't look out there's likely to be some nice, lively dog taking an interest in your underpinning.”
  3. (UK, slang, archaic) A public lavatory.
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:bathroom
  4. (Polari) A meeting place for homosexual men.
    Synonyms: gingerbread office, tea room, tearoom, teahouse, (US) tea house

Derived terms

Related terms

Descendants

  • → French: cottage

Translations

Verb

cottage (third-person singular simple present cottages, present participle cottaging, simple past and past participle cottaged)

  1. To stay at a seasonal home, to go cottaging.
  2. (intransitive, Polari, of men) To have homosexual sex in a public lavatory; to practice cottaging.

References

  1. ^ Kroonen, Guus (2013) “kuta”, in Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 11), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, pages 313-14
  2. ^ Oxford English Dictionary, 1884–1928, and First Supplement, 1933.

Further reading

French

Etymology

Borrowed from English cottage.

Pronunciation

Noun

cottage m (plural cottages)

  1. cottage

Further reading

Portuguese

Noun

cottage m (uncountable)

  1. cottage cheese (a cheese curd product)
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