penthouse

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   an apartment on the top floor of a tall building, often large and expensive

   The penthouse has a terrace overlooking the river.

2. 2
   noun

   a projecting roof, canopy, or shelter attached to or extending from a building

   The wide brim formed a penthouse that kept the rain from his bandaged face.

A folk-etymological reshaping of Middle English pentice, from Anglo-Norman pentiz and ultimately Latin appendere ("to hang or append"). Because the projecting shelter looked attached to a house, speakers recast the unfamiliar ending as house. The luxury top-floor apartment sense arose in the twentieth century.

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