Noun

Singular cottage

Plural cottages

cottage (plural cottages)

1. A small house; a cot; a hut.

Derived terms

• cottage cheese
• cottage industry

Verb

Infinitive to cottage

Third person singular cottages

Simple past cottaged

Past participle cottaged

Present participle cottaging

to cottage (third-person singular simple present cottages, present participle cottaging, simple past and past participle cottaged)

1. (intransitive, British, slang) Of men: To have homosexual sex in a public lavatory; to practice cottaging.

In modern usage, a cottage is a modest dwelling, typically in a rural, or semi-rural location (although there are cottage-style dwellings in cities). In the United Kingdom, the term cottage tends to denote a rurally- (sometimes village-) located property, of traditional build. Some examples of cottages are Victorian Cottages, Stone Cottages, Timber framed cottages and mock cottages. Mock cottages are post war homes designed to look like cottages. Older, pre Victorian cottages tend to have restricted height, and exposed timbers.

This sometimes means that the eave timbers intrude into the actual living space, and quite often, especially in recent renovations, the relevant timbers (purlins, rafters, posts, etc.) can be exposed enhancing the cottage experience. However, in most other settings, the term "cottage" denotes a small, often cosy dwelling, and small size is integral to the description, but in other places such as Canada, the term exists with no connotation of size at all (cf. vicarage or hermitage).

In certain places (e.g. North America, Scandinavia and Russia) the term "cottage" (in Finnish mökki; in Swedish stuga; in Norwegian hytte [from the German word Hütte], in Russian datsche) can refer to a vacation/summer home, often located near a body of water. However, in North America generally this is more commonly called a "cabin", "chalet", or even "camp".