cottage

Meanings

Noun

• A small house.
• A seasonal home of any size or stature, a recreational home or a home in a remote location.
• A public lavatory.
• A meeting place for homosexual men.

Verb

• To stay at a seasonal home, to go cottaging.
• To have homosexual sex in a public lavatory; to practice cottaging.

Origin

• Late Middle English, from Anglo-Norman cotage and Medieval Latin cotagium, from Old Northern French cot, cote + -age, from Proto-Germanic *kutan, *kuta-, probably of non-Indo-European origin, but possibly borrowed from ; compare Finnish kota ("hut, house") and Hungarian ház ("house"), both from /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, due to resemblance.