hovel

English

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɒvəl

Noun

hovel (plural hovels)

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.

Translations

open shed

• Finnish: lato (fi)

• Russian: хлев (ru) (xlev) m, амбар (ru) (ambar) m, сарай (ru) (saraj) m

poor cottage

• Catalan: enfony (ca) m
• Esperanto: domaĉo (eo)
• Finnish: tönö (fi)
• Icelandic: hreysi (is) n, kofi (is) m

• Ido: domacho (io)
• Russian: хибара (ru) (xibara) f, лачуга (ru) (lačuga) f

structure in porcelain manufacture

Verb

hovel (third-person singular simple present hovels, present participle hovelling or hoveling, simple past and past participle hovelled or hoveled)

1. (transitive) To put in a hovel; to shelter.
   • Shakespeare

     To hovel thee with swine, and rogues forlorn.

   • Alfred Tennyson

     The poor are hovelled and hustled together.