cottage

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

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkɒtɪd͡ʒ/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈkɑtɪd͡ʒ/, [ˈkɑɾɪd͡ʒ]

• Audio (US):

  (file)

  • (weak vowel merger) IPA^(key): /ˈkɑtəd͡ʒ/, [ˈkɑɾəd͡ʒ]
• Hyphenation: cot‧tage
• Rhymes: -ɒtɪdʒ

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

• cottage bacon
• cottage cheese
• cottage cheese ass
• cottagecore
• cottage food operation
• cottage fried potatoes
• cottage fries
• Cottage Grove
• cottage home
• cottage hospital
• cottage industry
• cottageless
• cottagelike
• cottage loaf
• cottage orchard
• cottage orné
• cottage parent
• cottage piano
• cottage pie
• cottage pudding
• cottager
• cottage suite
• cottagey
• Creole cottage
• electronic cottage
• summer cottage
• Swiss Cottage
• telecottage

 

Related terms

• cosset
• cot
• coterie

Descendants

• → French: cottage

Translations

A small house; a cot; a hut

• Albania: visele f
• Arabic: كُوخ m (kūḵ)
• Bulgarian: къщичка (bg) f (kǎštička), къщурка (bg) f (kǎšturka)
• Catalan: cabana (ca), caseta
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 村舍 (zh) (cūnshè), 小屋 (zh) (xiǎowū)

• Cornish: krowji m
• Esperanto: dometo
• Finnish: mökki (fi)
• French: cottage (fr) m
• Galician: palloza f, cabana (gl) f, cafúa f
• German: Cottage (de) n, Häuschen (de) n, Kotten (de) m
• Irish: teach beag m, teachín m
• Italian: casolare (it), rustico (it) m
• Japanese: コテージ (ja) (kotēji), 小屋 (ja) (こや, koya)
• Kurdish:

  Central Kurdish: کووخ (kûx)

• Latin: casa (la) f, tugurium n
• Macedonian: ку́ќарка f (kúḱarka), ку́ќичка f (kúḱička), ко́либа f (kóliba)
• Malayalam: കുടിൽ (ml) (kuṭil)
• Mòcheno: hitt f
• Norman: caûmiéthe f, caûminne f
• Persian: کلبه (fa) (kolbe), کازه (fa) (kâze)
• Plautdietsch: Kot f
• Portuguese: chalé (pt) m
• Russian: (shack) хи́жина (ru) f (xížina), (chalet) котте́дж (ru) m (kottɛ́dž), до́мик (ru) m (dómik), (log hut) изба́ (ru) f (izbá)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: ку̏ћица f

  Roman: kȕćica f

• Spanish: chalet (es)
• Swedish: stuga (sv) c
• Ukrainian: хата (uk) f (xata)
• Welsh: tyddyn m

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.

Further reading

• cottage on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Eric Partridge (2005) “cottage”, in Tom Dalzell and Terry Victor, editors, The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, volume 1 (A–I), London, New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 486.

French

Etymology

Borrowed from English cottage.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kɔ.taʒ/

Noun

cottage m (plural cottages)

1. cottage

Further reading

• “cottage”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Portuguese

Noun

cottage m (uncountable)

1. cottage cheese (a cheese curd product)