pent·house

(pĕnt′hous′)

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.

2. A shed or sloping roof attached to the side of a building or wall.

3. 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.

[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.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

penthouse

(ˈpɛntˌhaʊs)

1. (Architecture) a flat or maisonette built onto the top floor or roof of a block of flats

2. (Architecture) a construction on the roof of a building, esp one used to house machinery

3. (Architecture) a shed built against a building, esp one that has a sloping roof

4. (Tennis) real tennis the roofed corridor that runs along three sides of the court

[C14 pentis (later penthouse, by folk etymology), from Old French apentis, from Late Latin appendicium appendage, from Latin appendere to hang from; see appendix]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

pent•house

(ˈpɛntˌhaʊs)

n., pl. -hous•es (-ˌhaʊ zɪz)

1. an apartment or dwelling on the roof of a building, usu. set back from the outer walls.

2. any specially designed apartment on an upper floor, esp. the top floor, of a building.

3. a structure on a roof for housing elevator machinery, a water tank, etc.

4. a sloping roof or a shed with a sloping roof projecting from a wall or the side of a building, as to shelter a door.

[1520–30; alter. (by folk etym.) of Middle English pentis < Old French apentiz=apent, past participle of apendre to hang against]

penthouse

1. An outhouse with a lean-to roof.

2. A separate structure on the roof of a high rise building.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun

penthouse - an apartment located on the top floors of a building

apartment, flat - a suite of rooms usually on one floor of an apartment house

Translations

půdní byt

penthouse

Dachterrasse Dachterrassenwohnung

ρετιρέ

ático

abri auvent avant-toit hangar

tetõlakás

òakíbúî

attico pensilina tettoia

butas pastogėje

luksus dzīvoklis augšstāvā

takleilighet toppleilighet

byt na streche

çatı katı

楼顶阁楼

penthouse

[ˈpenthaʊs] N (penthouses (pl)) [ˈpenthaʊzɪz] → ático m

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

penthouse

[ˈpɛnthaʊs] n (also penthouse apartment, penthouse flat) (British) → appartement m (de luxe) au dernier étagepent-up [ˌpɛntˈʌp] adj [feelings] → refoulé(e)

Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

penthouse

n (= apartment) → Penthouse nt, → Dachterrassenwohnung f; (= roof) → Überdachung f

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

penthouse

[ˈpɛntˌhaʊs] n → attico

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

penthouse

(ˈpenthaus) noun

a (usually luxurious) flat at the top of a building. That apartment building has a beautiful penthouse; (also adjective) a penthouse flat.

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

Above Pierre's head some pigeons, disturbed by the movement he had made in sitting up, fluttered under the dark roof of the penthouse. The whole courtyard was permeated by a strong peaceful smell of stable yards, delightful to Pierre at that moment.

For a moment as he was rearranging his cloak Pierre opened his eyes and saw the same penthouse roofs, posts, and yard, but now they were all bluish, lit up, and glittering with frost or dew.

View in context

D'Artagnan stopped the postilion who rode the pack-horse, at the corner of the Rue des Lombards, under a penthouse, and calling one of Planchet's boys, he desired him not only to take care of the two horses, but to watch the postilion; after which he entered the shop of the grocer, who had just finished supper, and who, in his little private room, was, with a degree of anxiety, consulting the calendar, on which, every evening, he scratched out the day that was past.

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Then for the third time they came together, and at first Eric strove to be wary, as he had been before; but, growing mad at finding himself so foiled, he lost his wits and began to rain blows so fiercely and so fast that they rattled like hail on penthouse roof; but, in spite of all, he did not reach within Little John's guard.

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Vasili Andreevich went into the room with the old man, and Nikita drove through the gate opened for him by Petrushka, by whose advice he backed the horse under the penthouse. The ground was covered with manure and the tall bow over the horse's head caught against the beam.

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Having wallowed for two hours through the deep sand of the eucalyptus forest, he fell exhausted against the penthouse door.

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Here Joe (who had left the room on the conclusion of their short dialogue) was protecting himself and the horse from the rain under the shelter of an old penthouse roof.

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She had precisely the same shape of skull as Pope Alexander the Sixth; her organs of benevolence, veneration, conscientiousness, adhesiveness, were singularly small, those of self-esteem, firmness, destructiveness, combativeness, preposterously large; her head sloped up in the penthouse shape, was contracted about the forehead, and prominent behind; she had rather good, though large and marked features; her temperament was fibrous and bilious, her complexion pale and dark, hair and eyes black, form angular and rigid but proportionate, age fifteen.

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Yet the sunlight shone in at the ugly garret-window, which had a penthouse to itself thrust out among the tiles; and on the cracked and smoke-blackened parapet beyond, some of the deluded sparrows of the place rheumatically hopped, like little feathered cripples who had left their crutches in their nests; and there was a play of living leaves at hand that changed the air, and made an imperfect sort of music in it that would have been melody in the country.

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Some final wooden steps conducted them, stooping under a low penthouse roof, to the house-top.

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The doors and shutters were painted green, and the underside of the penthouses had been lined with deal boards in the German fashion, and painted white.

View in context

The design makes provisions for generous cross-ventilation, from the parking area to the penthouse.

The Calmas build a monument to film and fine living