hovel

English

Etymology

From Middle English hovel, hovil, hovylle, diminutive of Old English hof (“an enclosure, court, dwelling, house”), from Proto-Germanic *hufan (“hill, farm”), from Proto-Indo-European *keup- (“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) m., амбар (ru) m., сарай (ru) m.

poor cottage

Esperanto: domaĉo (eo) Finnish: tönö (fi) Icelandic: hreysi (is) n., kofi (is) m.

Ido: domacho (io) Russian: хибара (ru) f., лачуга (ru) f.

structure in porcelain manufacture

Verb

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

1. (transitive) To put in a hovel; to shelter.
   • To hovel thee with swine, and rogues forlorn. -- Shakespeare
   • The poor are hoveled and hustled together. -- Alfred Tennyson