hut
Americannoun
-
huts
plural
verb (used with object)
verb (used without object)
noun
-
a small house or shelter, usually made of wood or metal
-
(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:
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
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
He never came to my mother’s hut, never.
From "Facing the Lion" by Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton and Herman Viola
Beyond the container huts, between 4,000 and 5,000 participants will be staying on an Italian cruise ship which docked in Nagoya on Tuesday.
From BBC ● Sep. 16, 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
None of the huts are allowed to have power and all offer basic shelter.
From BBC ● Jun. 24, 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
Most huts, Ellsberg saw, did have some kind of shelter—holes in the ground, or sandbags in the corner.
From "Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War" by Steve Sheinkin
His troops, hutted among the heights of Morristown, were half fed, half clothed, and inferior in number to the garrison of New York.
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
One or two families of natives afterwards appeared hutted on the riverbank nearly opposite to our camp, and Piper opened a conversation with them across the river.
From Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Volume 2 by Thomas Mitchell
Captain Winslow and the officers and the crew of the “Osterley,” who had been hutted at a distance from the rest, on hearing the firing, had broken through the sentries, and hurried to the spot.
From Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships A Story of the Last Naval War by T. Hoggans
For a long time we were hutted in the Square.
From Adventures of a Despatch Rider by William Henry Lowe Watson
Do you remember when Prout and you were on their track for hutting and trespass, wasn't it?
From Stalky & Co. by Rudyard Kipling
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
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
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
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.
