cottage

American  

[kot-ij] / ˈkɒt ɪdʒ /

noun

• cottages
  plural

1. a small house, usually of only one story.

2. a small, modest house at a lake, mountain resort, etc., owned or rented as a vacation home.

3. one of a group of small, separate houses, as for patients at a hospital, guests at a hotel, or students at a boarding school.

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cottage British  

/ ˈkɒtɪdʒ /

noun

1. a small simple house, esp in a rural area

2. a small house in the country or at a resort, used for holiday purposes

3. one of several housing units, as at a hospital, for accommodating people in groups

4. slang a public lavatory

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• cottaged
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• cottages
  plural

Etymology

Origin of cottage

1350–1400; Middle English cotage. See cot ², -age; compare Medieval Latin cotagium, apparently < Anglo-French

Explanation

A cottage is a small house, particularly a traditional or old-fashioned house, or one that is used seasonally. Your family might rent a cottage near the beach every summer. In the US, a cottage typically has only one story, while in Canada a house can be much larger and still be called a cottage. In the Middle Ages, a cottage was housing for farm workers — sometimes known as cottagers — and the word implied not just a home, but also a barn and land. The first US holiday cottages were built in the 1880s in Bar Harbor, Maine and are credited with introducing the word cottage to North America.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

cottage cottages

Mundhe has enforced bans on using newspapers to wrap food, synthetic dyes and banned analogue paneer - non-dairy cottage cheese substitutes.

From BBC ● Sep. 7, 2026

The job had been especially valuable because it included the use of a cottage.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 7, 2026

Jayne McCaw, who manages the rentals for the “Heated Rivalry” cottage, said that it is now almost fully booked for the rest of 2026.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 27, 2026

One slightly stranger favorite is ground beef mixed with minced mushrooms and a little mushroom gravy powder, which can become an excellent head start on stew, meatballs, meatloaf or cottage pie.

From Salon ● Aug. 25, 2026

It was afternoon when we reached my cottage.

From "Rump: The (Fairly) True Story of Rumpelstilskin" by Liesl Shurtliff

As well as offering interest-free deposit loans, Streets2Homes has nine bedrooms across two Victorian cottages in the town.

From BBC ● Sep. 13, 2026

Housing reforms that increase supply, such as allowing smaller lots in new subdivisions, permitting duplexes, townhomes, and backyard cottages on existing lots, and changing zoning laws to allow housing nearer to jobs, are land-use issues.

From Barron's ● Jun. 24, 2026

As well as the main building at Royal Lodge, there were another eight nearby properties, with Mountbatten-Windsor's lease allowing three of these cottages to be sub-let, which he did until April 2026.

From BBC ● Jun. 4, 2026

“Land” ends in the place where it began, but in a modern era with cottages turned into holiday homes.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 29, 2026

Dean Moran’s place is actually two tumbly cottages knocked together and it’s so old it’s still got an outside bog.

From "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell

Related Words

• bungalow
• cabin
• chalet
• home
• hut
• lean-to
• lodge
• ranch
• shack
• shanty