cottage

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A small house.

   So when four years were wholly finished, / She threw her royal robes away. / “Make me a cottage in the vale,” she said, / “Where I may mourn and pray.

2. 2
   noun

   A seasonal home of any size or stature, a recreational home or a home in a remote location.

   Most cottages in the area were larger and more elaborate than my home.

3. 3
   noun

   a small house with a single story

4. 4
   noun

   A public lavatory.

5. 5
   noun

   A meeting place for homosexual men.

6. 6
   verb

   To stay at a seasonal home, to go cottaging.

7. 7
   verb

   To have homosexual sex in a public lavatory; to practice cottaging.

8. 8
   name

   A township in Saline County, Illinois.

Etymology

Late Middle English, from Anglo-Norman cotage and Medieval Latin cotagium, from Old Northern French cot, cote (“hut, cottage”) + -age (“surrounding property”), from Proto-Germanic *kutą, *kuta- (“shed”), probably of non-Indo-European origin, possibly borrowed from Uralic; compare Finnish kota (“hut, house”) and Hungarian ház (“house”), both from Proto-Finno-Ugric/Proto-Uralic *kota. However, also compare Dutch and English hut. Old Northern French cote is probably from Old Norse kot (“hut”), cognate of Old English cot of same Proto-Germanic origin. Slang sense “public toilet” from 19th century,…