noun
a. 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.
Origin of penthouse
Alteration of Middle English
pentis, pentace a shed attached to a wall of a building from Anglo-Norman
pentiz penthouses from Old French
apentiz penthouse from apent past participle of apendre to belong, depend from Medieval Latin
appendere from Latin
to hang, suspend ; see
append .
Word History: The status of the word
penthouse has risen considerably in its history. The word ultimately 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, 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 beginning in the 1500s, the second part of the word began to be associated with the word
house, in its meaning “a building for human use,” and spellings like
penthouse begin to become common. 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.
Noun (plural penthouses)
- (dated or historical) An outhouse or other structure (especially one with a sloping roof) attached to the outside wall of a building.
- An apartment or suite on the top floor of a tall building, especially one that is expensive or luxurious.
- Any of the sloping roofs at the side of a real tennis court.
Origin From Anglo-Norman pentiz (“pentice"), from apendiz (“appentice"), ultimately from a suffixed form of Latin appendÅ (“I append").
