hut

Etymology 1

From Middle English *hutte, hotte, borrowed from Old French hutte, hute (“cottage”), from Old High German hutta (“hut, cottage”), from Proto-Germanic *hudjǭ, *hudjō (“hut”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kewt- (“to deck; cover; covering; skin”). Cognate with German Hütte (“hut”), Dutch hut (“hut”), West Frisian hutte (“hut”), Saterland Frisian Hutte (“hut”), Danish hytte (“hut”), Norwegian Bokmål hytte (“hut”), Swedish hydda (“hut”). Related to hide.

noun

1. A small, simple one-storey dwelling or shelter, often with just one room, and generally built of readily available local materials.
   a thatched hut; a mud hut; a shepherd’s hut
   1625, Nicholas Breton, “An Untrained Souldiour” in Characters and Essayes, Aberdeen: Edward Raban, p. 31, And in his Hut, when hee to rest doth take him, Hee sleeps, till Drums or deadlie Pellets wake him.
   1751, Samuel Johnson, The Rambler, No. 186, 28 December, 1751, Volume 6, London: J. Payne and J. Bouquet, 1752, pp. 108-109, […] love, that extends his dominion wherever humanity can be found, perhaps exerts the same power in the Greenlander’s hut, as in the palaces of eastern monarchs.
   There was an oil lamp in all the four huts on Okonkwo’s compound, and each hut seen from the others looked like a soft eye of yellow half-light set in the solid massiveness of night. 1958, Chinua Achebe, chapter 11, in Things Fall Apart, New York: Anchor Books, published 1994, page 95
2. A small wooden shed.
   a groundsman’s hut
3. (agriculture, obsolete) A small stack of grain.

verb

1. (archaic, transitive) To provide (someone) with shelter in a hut.
   to hut troops in winter quarters
   […] commonly the Captaines, after their souldiers are hutted, build Hutts in the place, where their tents stood, 1631, Samuel Marolois, translated by Henry Hexham, The Art of Fortification, Amsterdam: John Johnson, Part 2, Figure 124 & 125
   […] the scite of the New Town, where divisions of the 17th and 20th light dragoons had hutted themselves. 1803, Robert Charles Dallas, The History of the Maroons, London: Longman and Rees, Volume 1, Letter 6, p. 200
   His troops, hutted among the heights of Morristown, were half fed, half clothed, and inferior in number to the garrison of New York. 1850, Washington Irving, chapter 56, in The Life of Washington, volume 2, New York: John W. Lovell, page 443
2. (archaic, intransitive) To take shelter in a hut.
   1653, Newsletter sent from London to Edward Nicholas dated 17 June, 1653, in William Dunn Macray (ed.), Calendar of the Clarendon State Papers, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1869, Volume 2, p. 219, Seven boatfuls of Dutch prisoners have been taken to Chelsea College, where they are to hut under the walls.
   He removed with the troops, on the 19th, to Valley-forge, where they hutted, about sixteen miles from Philadelphia. 1778, William Gordon, The History of the Rise, Progress, and Establishment, of the Independence of the United States of America, London, Volume 3, Letter 1, p. 11
3. (agriculture, obsolete, transitive) To stack (sheaves of grain).
   The method of endeavouring to save corn in bad harvests, by hutting it in the field, is often practised in the north and west of Scotland, 1796, James Donaldson, Modern Agriculture; or, The Present State of Husbandry in Great Britain, volume 2, Edinburgh, page 417

Etymology 2

A short, sharp sound of command. Compare hey, hup, etc.

intj

1. (American football) Called by the quarterback to prepare the team for a play.