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hut

American  
[huht] / hʌt /

noun

  • huts
    plural
  1. a small or humble dwelling of simple construction, especially one made of natural materials, as of logs or grass.

    Synonyms:
    hovel, shed
  2. a simple roofed shelter, often with one or two sides left open.

  3. Military. a wooden or metal structure for the temporary housing of troops.


verb (used with object)

hutted, hutting
  1. to furnish with a hut as temporary housing; billet.

verb (used without object)

hutted, hutting
  1. to lodge or take a shelter in a hut.

hut British  
/ hʌt /

noun

  1. a small house or shelter, usually made of wood or metal

  2. (on a sheep or cattle station) accommodation for the shearers, stockmen, etc

  3. a shelter for mountaineers, skiers, etc

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

verb

  1. to furnish with or live in a hut

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

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.

Keep Reading on Vocabulary.com

Vocabulary lists containing hut

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:

It refers to the mythical Slavic crone, Baba Yaga, who either gives heroes a boon or lures wayward children to a forest hut that moves around on bird legs.

From Salon ● Oct. 31, 2026

The faint cry of protesters could be heard in the distance as Charles visited Umana Yana, a thatched hut and traditional Indigenous gathering place.

From Barron's ● Oct. 30, 2026

These included updating the warming hut and clubhouse and adding a mountain bike park.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 24, 2026

But ESPN, which the NFL now has a piece of, in the way rich people own a small stake in a clam hut on Martha’s Vineyard, is eager to tell you it has the game.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 8, 2026

I took the older boys to my mother’s hut, because we have a lot of cattle and a lot of milk.

From "Facing the Lion" by Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton and Herman Viola

For this humble fishing village in Yemen, a tumbledown grouping of barely-there huts nestled between the water and an imposing mountain range, stands sentinel over one of the world’s most vital waterways.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 27, 2026

Wooden container huts meant for thousands of athletes have become the subject of heated criticism ahead of the opening of Japan's Asian Games on Saturday.

From BBC ● Sep. 16, 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

Children linger in the narrow shade cast by the huts, some too tired to play, others trailing silently after their mothers.

From Barron's ● Jun. 29, 2026

A mud hut, thatched, small, set near a paddy field, with two or three similar huts nearby.

From "Nectar in a Sieve" by Kamala Markandaya

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

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

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

In the arrangement for winter-quarters, the Pennsylvania line, consisting of six regiments, was hutted near 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

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

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

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 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

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