hovel

Etymology

From Middle English hovel, hovil, hovylle, diminutive of Old English hof (“an enclosure, court, dwelling, house”), from Proto-Germanic *hufą (“hill, farm”), from Proto-Indo-European *kewp- (“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

• IPA^(key): /ˈhɒvəl/, /ˈhʌvəl/
• Rhymes: -ɒvəl
• Rhymes: -ʌvəl

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.
   • 1944, Miles Burton, chapter 5, in The Three Corpse Trick:

     The hovel stood in the centre of what had once been a vegetable garden, but was now a patch of rank weeds. Surrounding this, almost like a zareba, was an irregular ring of gorse and brambles, an unclaimed vestige of the original common.

3. In the manufacture of porcelain, a large, conical brick structure around which the firing kilns are grouped.

Verb

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

1. (transitive) To put in a hovel; to shelter.
   • Shakespeare

     To hovel thee with swine, and rogues forlorn.

   • Alfred Tennyson

     The poor are hovelled and hustled together.