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:
In his small stone hut at the entrance to the Cavustepe site, Kusman is undaunted by the doubters.
From Barron's ● Aug. 10, 2026
So, before jumping into today’s news, don’t miss: a lively reader debate on Gen X’s affinity for bars and one couple’s journey renovating a ramshackle hut on the Irish coast into their dream home.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 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
The hut was rebuilt in 2023 and first advertised last week, but comes with few frills.
From BBC ● Jun. 24, 2026
That same evening a bull separated itself from the herd and came up to my mother’s hut.
From "Facing the Lion" by Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton and Herman Viola
They have also tried to stop poorly equipped climbers from summitting and mandating that visitors spend at least one night at one of the huts on the trails.
From Barron's ● Sep. 10, 2026
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
While beach huts regularly come up for sale in Abersoch, Elvin said it was rare for one on the beach's more sought-after right-hand side to reach the open market.
From BBC ● Jun. 24, 2026
The huts offer shelter in a landscape without trees or natural shade, and where the sun reflects harshly off the white salt crust.
From Barron's ● May 10, 2026
The villagers followed the stream past clusters of huts and granaries perched on stilts.
From "A Girl Named Disaster" by Nancy Farmer
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
General Macquarie is entitled to be regarded as the founder of these colonies: before his time, they were but hutted camps.
From The History of Tasmania , Volume II by John West
The dreary encampment at Valley Forge has become proverbial for its hardships; yet they were scarcely more severe than those suffered by Washington's army during the present winter, while hutted among the heights of Morristown.
From The Student's Life of Washington; Condensed from the Larger Work of Washington Irving For Young Persons and for the Use of Schools by Washington Irving
The Sixth was hutted in temporary structures built of logs surmounted by tents.
From Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War by James Harvey Kidd
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 The Seven Seas 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
We were put on shore on the 8th February, and instantly commenced hutting ourselves by brigades.
From Twenty-Five Years in the Rifle Brigade by William Surtees
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
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
The troops were landed, and there being no barrack accommodation for them, some succeeded in hutting themselves most comfortably.
From History of Prince Edward Island by Duncan Campbell
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.
