(pĕntˈhousˌ)
nouna. An apartment or dwelling situated on the roof of a building.
b. A residence, often with a terrace, on the top floor or floors of a building.
c. A structure housing machinery on the roof of a building.
- A shed or sloping roof attached to the side of a building or wall.
- Sports The sloping roof that rises from the inner wall to the outer wall surrounding three sides of the court in court tennis, off which the ball is served.
Word History: The word
penthouse goes back to Latin
appendere, “to cause to be suspended.” In Medieval Latin
appendere developed the sense “to belong, depend,” a sense that passed into
apendre, the Old French development of
appendere. From
apent, the past participle of
apendre, came the derivative
apentiz, “low building behind or beside a house,” and the Anglo-Norman plural form
pentiz. The form without the
a- was then borrowed into Middle English, giving us
pentis (first recorded about 1300), which was applied to sheds or lean-tos added on to buildings. Because these structures often had sloping roofs, the word was connected with the French word
pente, “slope,” and the second part of the word changed by folk-etymology to
house, which could mean simply “a building for human use.” The use of the term with reference to fancy apartments developed from its application to a structure built on a roof to cover such things as a stairway or an elevator shaft.
Penthouse then came to mean an apartment built on a rooftop and finally the top floor of an apartment building.
