hut
Americannoun
-
huts
plural
verb (used with object)
verb (used without object)
noun
-
a small house or shelter, usually made of wood or metal
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(on a sheep or cattle station) accommodation for the shearers, stockmen, etc
-
a shelter for mountaineers, skiers, etc
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of hut
1645–55; < French hutte < Frankish, cognate with Old Saxon hutta, Old High German hutt ( e ) a < West Germanic *hudjā; akin to hide 1
Explanation
If you've ever camped under a wooden lean-to, you know what a hut is — it's a simple, usually temporary shelter that doesn't do much more than keep the rain off your head. A hut can be built from many different materials, including wood, stone, snow, or even cardboard. What all huts have in common is a simple design and the intention that it provide a short-term shelter from the weather. Campers, hikers, and skiers often rest or sleep in huts. The word comes from the French hutte, "cottage," which has its root in the Old English word for "to hide," hydan. Hut was originally used in English to describe military dwellings.
Vocabulary lists containing hut
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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.
See Examples For:
Staff at a mountain hut found the child near the sixth station of a hiking route towards the summit and alerted police.
From BBC ● Aug. 22, 2026
In his small stone hut at the entrance to the Cavustepe site, Kusman is undaunted by the doubters.
From Barron's ● Aug. 10, 2026
After returning to Ithaca disguised by Athena as an old beggar, Odysseus reveals himself to the son he hasn’t seen since infancy in the hut of the swineherd Eumaeus.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026
Despite the seemingly-high price tag, estate agent Rhys Elvin expects the hut to be highly sought-after as technically, it means someone can own part of the beach.
From BBC ● Jun. 24, 2026
They left the hut and began to hurry toward the village.
From "Rowan of Rin" by Emily Rodda
He has maintained it as a cultural project, with elegant bamboo huts to receive visitors for dawn trips, organic lunches and tamale-making classes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026
Photos show the construction of observation huts to the north, south and west of the blast site, some 10,000 yards—about 5½ miles—away.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026
Observations show the people use narrow outrigger canoes, live in large communal huts, carry spears, bows and arrows, and wear fibre waistbelts, as well as necklaces and headbands.
From Barron's ● May 18, 2026
International and specialist teams have since aided in the search that has stretched down caves, across rivers and into old mining huts.
From BBC ● Feb. 25, 2026
Everybody just lived in grass huts on the beach and had to fish every morning to get their food.
From "We Were Here" by Matt De La Peña
There was a sawmill near, round which were left several piles of boards, with which we soon hutted ourselves,—an operation the more necessary at that inclement season as we had no tents.
From Franklin's Autobiography (Eclectic English Classics) by Benjamin Franklin
In fact, we were no sooner hutted than we were on the march, if there were but the least excuse in the way of a bit of open weather, or a Tory raid.
From Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker by S. Weir (Silas Weir) Mitchell
Farewell, Romance!" the Lake-folk sighed; "We lift the weight of flatling years; The caverns of the mountain-side Hold him who scorns our hutted piers.
From Verses 1889-1896 by Rudyard Kipling
Most of the troops we passed had tents, and some were hutted in hovels made of pine-boughs, thatched with the leaves or twigs of those trees.
From In the Russian Ranks A Soldier's Account of the Fighting in Poland by John Morse
Habit had familiarized the American army to the use of huts constructed by themselves; and both officers and men were content to pass the winter in a hutted camp.
From The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 Commander in Chief of the American Forces During the War which Established the Independence of his Country and First President of the United States by John Marshall
Kinds of designs and experiments in hutting could be practised without expense in this simple way.
From The Art of Travel Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries by Sir Francis Galton
The king, excitedly impatient, now led the way again, shooting hurry-scurry through my men's lines, which were much commented on as being different from Waganda hutting, on to the tall tree with the adjutant's nest.
From The Discovery of the Source of the Nile by John Hanning Speke
Do you remember when Prout and you were on their track for hutting and trespass, wasn't it?
From Stalky & Co. by Rudyard Kipling
He frequently accompanied the General, as at Valley Forge, in his visits to the encampment on the mountain, where the emaciated tattered wretches were hutting with all possible speed against the severity of another winter.
From The Conqueror by Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
It was now the middle of February; the rains began to fall very heavy, and pointed the necessity of hutting the people; convicts were therefore appointed to assist the detachment in this work.
From A Source Book of Australian History by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
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.
