lean-to
Americannoun
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a shack or shed supported at one side by trees or posts and having an inclined roof.
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a roof of a single pitch with the higher end abutting a wall or larger building.
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a structure with such a roof.
noun
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a roof that has a single slope with its upper edge adjoining a wall or building
-
a shed or outbuilding with such a roof
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of lean-to
1425–75; late Middle English; noun use of verb phrase lean to
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:
Our home was a compact, two-story terraced house with a back garden and a little lean-to greenhouse.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 21, 2026
At night she sleeps in an unheated lean-to.
From New York Times ● May 17, 2022
The painters, in less than half an hour, fabricated a moveable lean-to out from a sheet of heavy translucent plastic and lumber from the trailer.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 16, 2021
If you're outside and caught in the storm, find shelter and try to stay dry and cover all exposed body parts, exercise or build a lean-to, windbreak or snow cave and fire for heat.
From Fox News ● Oct. 26, 2021
Next they turned their attention to the lean-to shed, or the Temple, as they were already beginning to call it.
From "The Egypt Game" by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
But hundreds more stayed — and without homes, people have been camping out year after year amid a fire-denuded landscape in mobile homes and lean-tos.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 30, 2025
By Tuesday, more bamboo and tarpaulins had been brought into the camp, to build new shelters for people crowding under poles and lean-tos.
From New York Times ● Mar. 7, 2023
Her attention was fixed on a highway underpass nearby, where a handful of people were living in tents and cardboard lean-tos.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 14, 2022
Now there are at least 70 - lean-tos, makeshift shelters and tents of different sizes - spreading out from a restroom building at what was once a popular picnic pavilion.
From Washington Times ● Feb. 16, 2020
Wisps of smoke were beginning to rise from the chimneys of several small log lean-tos along the roadway.
From "The Witch of Blackbird Pond" by Elizabeth George Speare
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.
