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curtilage

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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WOTD – 7 May 2026
An aerial photograph of a farmhouse called the Old Hemmel (now managed as a holiday home) and its curtilage, near the village of Lanercost, England, United Kingdom.

Etymology

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Inherited from Middle English courtelage, curtilage, curtylage (“vegetable garden; croft; gardening, farming”),[1] from Anglo-Norman curtilage, from Old French cortillage, courtillage (modern French courtillage (obsolete); compare Medieval Latin cortilagium, curtilagium), from cortil, cortill (“small court, garth”) + -age (suffix denoting a relationship with a place).[2] Cortil, cortill are derived from cort, curt (“court of a monarch”)[3] + -il (suffix forming place names); and cort, curt from Latin cōrtem, the accusative singular form of cōrs, a variant of cohors (“court; enclosure; farmyard; etc.”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ḱóm (“beside, by; near; with”) + *ǵʰer- (“to enclose”).

Pronunciation

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Noun

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curtilage (plural curtilages)

  1. (chiefly property law) A small piece of land, such as a garth or yard with the buildings and structures on it, immediately surrounding a dwelling house and legally regarded as part of its property; originally, such areas were enclosed by a fence or wall.
    Synonym: grounds
    Coordinate term: messuage
    • 1656, William Prynne, A Short Demurrer to the Jewes Long Discontinued Remitter into England. […], London: […] Edward Thomas […], →OCLC, page 36:
      [T]he King grants them, that they may buy houſes and curtelages in the Cities or Burroughs vvhere they reſide, ſo as they hold them in chief of the King; ſaving to the Lords the Services due and accuſtomed.
    • 1710 July 20 (date written; Gregorian calendar), George Daniell, “Abstract of the Will of George Daniell, the Founder of the Madron School, from the MSS. of the Late George C. Boase”, in John S. Amery, Maxwell Adams, E. Windeatt, H Tapley-Soper, editors, Devon & Cornwall Notes & Queries: A Quarterly Journal Devoted to Local History, Biography and Antiquities of the Counties of Devon and Cornwall, volume VI, Exeter, Devon: James G. Commin, published 1911, →OCLC, item 62, pages 74–75:
      I give to my kinsman Alexander Trevethan, John Nicholls of Trereife, Esq., George Veale of Trevailer, Gent., Thomas Rowe, Clerk, the Vicar of Madron, and to the succeeding Vicar and Vicars, Abraham Chirgwin and Thomas Baynard both of Madron, yeomen, My little Tenement in Leriggon, […] and the House and Courtledge now in the possession of Cicely Benver, Widow for her life […] and all that House, Courtledge and Cellar, Granted by Lease to George Edmonds, and that Cellar and Courtledge now in the possession of Daniel Hawkey, Merchant, By Grant for 99 years, […]
    • 1769, William Blackstone, “Of Offences against the Habitations of Individuals”, in Commentaries on the Laws of England, book IV (Of Public Wrongs), Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 225:
      [I]f the barn, ſtable, or vvarehouſe be parcel of the manſionhouſe, though not under the ſame roof or contiguous, a burglary may be committed therein; for the capital houſe protects and privileges all it's branches and appurtenants, if vvithin the curtilage or homeſtall.
    • 1855, Charles Kingsley, “How Salvation Yeo Slew the King of the Gubbings”, in Westward Ho!: Or, The Voyages and Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, […], volume II, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Macmillan & Co., →OCLC, page 166:
      On the middle of the down stood a wayside inn; a desolate and villanous-looking lump of lichen-spotted granite, with windows paper-patched, and rotting thatch kept down by stones and straw-bands; and at the back a rambling courtledge of barns and walls, around which pigs and bare-foot children grunted in loving communion of dirt.
    • 1892, Q [pseudonym; Arthur Quiller-Couch], “I Saw Three Ships. Chapter II. The Second Ship.”, in I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter’s Tales, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, […], →OCLC, page 35:
      The house, a square, two-storyed building of greystone, roofed with heavy slates, was guarded in front by a small courtlage, the wall of which blocked all view from the lower rooms. […] A white gate opened on the courtlage, and the path from this to the front door was marked out by slabs of blue slate, accurately laid in line.
    • 1987 March 3, Byron White, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States (delivering the court’s opinion), “United States v. Dunn”, in Frank D[ouglas] Wagner, reporter, United States Reports: Cases Adjudged in the Supreme Court at October Term, 1986 […], volume 480, Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 301:
      [W]e believe that curtilage questions should be resolved with particular reference to four factors: the proximity of the area claimed to be curtilage to the home, whether the area is included within an enclosure surrounding the home, the nature of the uses to which the area is put, and the steps taken by the resident to protect the area from observation by people passing by. […] [T]hese factors […] bear upon the centrally relevant consideration—whether the area in question is so intimately tied to the home itself that it should be placed under the home's "umbrella" of Fourth Amendment protection. Applying these factors to respondent's barn and to the area immediately surrounding it, we have little difficulty in concluding that this area lay outside the curtilage of the ranch house.
    • 2022 March 9, Industry Insider [pseudonym], “A Damaging Trend”, in Rail, number 952, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire: Bauer Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 68:
      High winds are not in themselves a controllable risk. But fallen trees certainly are, given the control the railway has over its own curtilage.
      An extended use.

Alternative forms

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Translations

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See also

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  • ambit (“(obsolete) grounds or precincts of a place”)

References

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  1. ^ “curtilāǧe, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  2. ^ “-age”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012
  3. ^ “curtilage, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, September 2025; “curtilage, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading

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Anagrams

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Middle English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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Borrowed from Old French cortillage, curtillage; compare court. First attested in c. 1330.

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /kurtiˈlaːd͡ʒ(ə)/, /ˈkurtilad͡ʒ(ə)/, /ˈkur(t)lad͡ʒ(ə)/

Noun

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curtilage (chiefly Late Middle English; East Anglia, East Saxon, Southern)

  1. A small vegetable garden surrounding a house; a croft.
  2. (rare) The care of such a garden; gardening.

Descendants

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  • English: curtilage, courtledge, courtlage

References

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