hovel

Meanings

1. An open shed for sheltering cattle, or protecting produce, etc., from the weather.
2. A poor cottage; a small, mean house; a hut.
3. In the manufacture of porcelain, a large, conical brick structure around which the firing kilns are grouped.
4. A straitjacket.

1. To put in a hovel; to shelter.
2. To construct a chimney so as to prevent smoking, by making two of the more exposed walls higher than the others, or making an opening on one side near the top.

Etymology

From Middle English hovel, hovil, hovylle, diminutive of *hove, *hof (“structure, building, house”), from Old English hof (“an enclosure, court, dwelling, house”), from Proto-West Germanic *hof, from Proto-Germanic *hufą (“hill, farm”), from Proto-Indo-European *kewp- (“arch, bend, buckle”), equivalent to howf + -el. Compare Middle High German hobel (“cover, lid, covered wagon”). Cognate with Dutch hof (“garden, court”), German Hof (“yard, garden, court, palace”), Icelandic hof (“temple, hall”). Related to hove and hover.