cottage
Americannoun
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a small house, usually of only one story.
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a small, modest house at a lake, mountain resort, etc., owned or rented as a vacation home.
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one of a group of small, separate houses, as for patients at a hospital, guests at a hotel, or students at a boarding school.
noun
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a small simple house, esp in a rural area
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a small house in the country or at a resort, used for holiday purposes
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one of several housing units, as at a hospital, for accommodating people in groups
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slang a public lavatory
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
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.
Vocabulary lists containing cottage
There's No Word Like Home
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"A Village After Dark" by Kazuo Ishiguro
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Travel
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The hotel is largely the creation of Frank Miller, who bought Glenwood Cottage, a modest boarding house, from his father in 1880.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 11, 2026
The team whose home results outshone their away ones to the greatest extent was Fulham, and fair play to them, Craven Cottage is the most homely sounding ground in the country.
From BBC • May 26, 2026
Cottage cheese is known for being packed with nutrients, namely protein, making it a top choice of food within the fitness community.
From Salon • May 24, 2026
Fen Cottage at Wicken Fen, in Cambridgeshire, was built in roughly 1700 and is one of the last surviving homes of the ancient fen dwellers.
From BBC • May 13, 2026
It’s been almost two weeks since I wrote about Ivy seeing the woman in white leaving Poppy Cottage.
From "How to Disappear Completely" by Ali Standish
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
