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coach house

coach house

6.8
A small building near a large house where carriages or cars are kept
  • noun
  • /koʊtʃ haʊs/
  • UK
translation icon : cochera
  • The family stored their vintage car in the coach house next to the main estate.

Examples

  • Furtive steps came down the yard again, and Daft Jimmy peeped into the coach house.

    Fiction book (1995)
  • Once more he returned to the coach house.

    Fiction book (1995)
  • The tense rope swung him by his neck halfway across the coach house.

    Fiction book (1995)
  • One flattened the neighbor's coach house; blood dripped from baby Victor's left ear.

    Fiction book (1995)
  • After the horse-drawn carriage was cleaned, it was placed back in the coach house for the night.

  • She discovered old tools and dusty furniture hidden in the coach house behind the main house.

Synonyms

carriage house
vscoach house
  • US
7 6.8

A small building beside an old house where people keep carriages or cars

sits near large houses or estates rather than only near older homes
remise
vscoach house
  • Archaic
9.9

A small building where horse-drawn carriages are kept

is the common small building near large houses not limited to old contexts

How Big

barn
363 1.0
coach house
  • UK
6.8
garage
614 1.0
lean-to
6 6.7
shed
159 1.0

Surface Forms

coach house singular
coach houses plural

Morphology

coach + house

The meaning is partly inferable from 'coach' (a carriage) + 'house' — a learner will plausibly guess the phrase refers to a building associated with coaches (e.g., storage/garage for carriages). However the common modern sense as a small self-contained dwelling or converted outbuilding is a metonymic/functional extension and not fully predictable from the literal parts (and 'coach' as 'carriage' is somewhat archaic), so B1 learners who only know the constituents may not derive the residential meaning reliably.

Etymology

Coach house was originally the small building beside a big house where the family's horse-drawn coach and horses were kept. So the image of a 'house for coaches' explains why it means 'a building used to store carriages or vehicles' today.