root housen.
/ˈruːt haʊs/, U.S. /ˈrut ˌhaʊs/, /ˈrʊt ˌhaʊs/ 1. An ornamental building made principally of tree roots, esp. in a garden.
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the world > food and drink > farming > gardening > equipment and buildings > [noun] > summer-house
summer house1519
garden house1535
cabinet1579
summer hall1583
kiosk1625
summer room1625
sunny chamber1641
shadow-house1649
alcove1663
root house1755
moss-house?1793
rose temple1848
society > inhabiting and dwelling > inhabited place > a building > outhouse(s) > [noun] > building or house in garden
summer house1519
garden house1535
kiosk1625
summer room1625
sunny chamber1641
shadow-house1649
garden apartment1751
root house1755
1755 Coll. Poems IV. 351 (heading) On a Root-House.
1765 R. Dodsley Leasowes in W. Shenstone Wks. (1777) II. 289 Winding forward down the valley, you pass beside a small root-house, where on a tablet are these lines.
1802 E. Parsons Myst. Visit II. 243 Behind it was a root house, where the fire~wood was kept.
1832 M. R. Mitford Our Village V. 146 They..had adjourned to the root-house, a pretty rustic building at the end of the garden.
1860 Harper's Mag. Dec. 92/2 Entering the wood-path, he followed it until he reached a small root-house, which he and Harry Osborn had built in their days of boyhood.
1934 PMLA 49 573 Shaded walks, streams, grottoes, root-houses, and vistas are common to the two estates.
1998 Grimsby Evening Tel. (Nexis) 1 Oct. 25 The walk passed..a late 18th century root house complete with rustic tables and chairs.
2. Originally and chiefly North American. A house or barn for storing root vegetables.
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the world > food and drink > farming > cultivation or tillage > cultivation of plants or crops > storage or preservation of crops > [noun] > store for roots
root house1790
potato pie1807
yam house1910
1790 Pennsylvanian Packet 30 Mar. 4/2 On the premises are..two arched stone root-houses.
1805 R. W. Dickson Pract. Agric. I. 60 Root-Houses. Where a number of cows..are fed on winter roots and vegetables,..it is highly necessary to have houses of this sort.
1847 W. C. L. Martin Ox 115/1 Where hay is scarce, carrots form a very economical substitute; they must be kept in dry root-houses or in trenches.
1893 Harper's Mag. Nov. 945/1 A turkey which had been sitting in the root-house appeared with twelve children.
1905 McClure's Mag. Mar. 498/2 By eleven o'clock the honey was strained and sealed securely. Molly carried the heavy jars one by one to the capacious root-house.
1961 W. O. Mitchell Jake & Kid 28 ‘Bin a real fine summer fer vegetables,’ he said then. ‘Too bad yer ma don't have no root house.’
1991 D. McBain Art Roebuck 9 Athanase St-Cyr had dwelt by the river in a scoop-roofed shanty until the day some damp turnips ignited in the roothouse through spontaneous combustion.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, November 2010; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1755