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🔨 To cover with straw 🌾 Dried roof straw 🏠 A straw roof 💇 Thick messy hair
to thatch

to thatch

9 7.0
To cover a roof with dry plants like straw or reeds
  • verb
  • /θætʃ/
translation icon : techar con paja
  • I would prefer that Bay View be thatched densely enough to quench my newfound thirst for privacy.
  • a thatched roof
  • a thatched hut
  • a thatched cottage

You can make a roof with wooden shingles, which are just wooden tiles, or you can thatch a roof, but it's nothing like as durable as a tiled roof.

Examples

  • Which I believe they use to thatch the roofs of their traditional chickee huts.

    Adaptation. (2002)

  • Thatch their roofs, put this new-fangled glass in their windows.

    The Wicked Lady (1983)

  • A charming farmhouse with stone walls and a thatched roof sits in the distance.

    Fiction book (1994)

  • The walls of the hut were fashioned of sticks and the roof thatched with palm leaves.

    Fiction book (1999)

  • The sun danced on the thatched roofs of the Seminole Indian village.

    Fiction book (1998)

  • Frye arrives at a modest shelter made of branches and thatched with local grass.

    Academic text (2002)

  • You can make a roof with wooden shingles, which are just wooden tiles, or you can thatch a roof, but it's nothing like as durable as a tiled roof.

    toldinstone

  • The predominant house type was cylindrical, with mud walls and a thatched conical roof.

    Academic text (1993)

  • The village, with its mix of palm-thatched huts and houses of pastel-colored plywood, faces the lagoon.

    Fiction book (1995)

  • The workers began to thatch the roof with reeds to protect the house from the rain.

Synonyms

to roof
vsto thatch
9 2.8

To cover a building with a top layer to keep out rain

is specific, using straw, plant stems, or similar material to make that top
to thack
vsto thatch
  • Archaic
9.9

To cover a roof with straw or reeds to keep it dry

is the same action but appears as a different written form
to thatched
vsto thatch
5.2

To cover a roof with straw or reeds

is the action of covering rather than the finished, already covered state
to reed
vsto thatch
  • UK
8.6

To cover a roof with bundles of long grass that grow near water

is broader and also allows straw, plant stems, or similar materials

Compounds

thatch palm
  • US
8.8

A small palm tree from southern Florida and the West Indies with leaves used to cover roofs

thatch tree
  • US
9.9

A small palm tree from southern Florida and the West Indies with leaves used to make roofs

silver thatch
  • US
9.9

A small palm tree with silvery leaves

Surface Forms

thatch infinitive
thatched past
thatched past participle
thatching present participle
thatches third person singular

Etymology

Thatch as a verb comes from the old English þæc meaning 'roof', so to thatch a house is to cover it with straw or reeds to make or repair its roof.