hutch

From Middle English hucche (“storage chest”), variation of whucce, from Old English hwiċe, hwiċċe (“box, chest”). Spelling influenced by Old French huche (“chest”), from Medieval Latin hūtica, from a different Germanic root, from Frankish *hutta, from Proto-Germanic *hudjō, *hudjǭ (“box, hut, hutch”). Akin to Old English hȳdan (“to conceal; hide”). More at hide, hut.

• IPA^(key): /hʌt͡ʃ/

• Audio (RP)

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• Rhymes: -ʌtʃ

hutch (plural hutches)

1. A box, chest, crate, case or cabinet.
2. A coop or cage for keeping small animals (rabbits, guinea pigs, dogs, etc).
   • 1937, John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men‎, New York: Covici Friede, page 100:

     “No place for rabbits now, but I could easy build a few hutches and you could feed alfalfa to the rabbits.”

   • 1960 July 11, Harper Lee, chapter 16, in To Kill a Mockingbird, Philadelphia, Pa., New York, N.Y.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott Company, →OCLC:

     To reach the courtroom, on the second floor, one passed sundry sunless county cubbyholes: the tax assessor,... the circuit clerk, the judge of probate lived in cool dim hutches that smelled […]

   • 2023 September 6, David Turner, “Best-kept stations: roots in railway's past”, in RAIL, number 991, page 54:

     In 1880, Punch commented that the London & South Western Railway directors must have been keen rabbit fanciers, "for the number of hutches scattered over their 'system' is enormous". Yet, "these hutches are not for rabbits, but for humans, and they are technically known as 'Country Stations'".

3. A piece of furniture in which items may be displayed.
4. A cabinet for storing dishes.
5. A piece of furniture (cabinet) to be placed on top of a desk.
6. A measure of two Winchester bushels.
7. (mining) The case of a flour bolt.
8. (mining) A car on low wheels, in which coal is drawn in the mine and hoisted out of the pit.
9. (mining) A jig or trough for ore dressing or washing ore.
10. A baker's kneading-trough.

hutch (third-person singular simple present hutches, present participle hutching, simple past and past participle hutched)

1. (transitive) To hoard or lay up, in a chest.
   • 1634 October 9 (first performance), [John Milton], edited by H[enry] Lawes, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: […] [Comus], London: […] [Augustine Matthews] for Hvmphrey Robinson, […], published 1637, →OCLC; reprinted as Comus: […] (Dodd, Mead & Company’s Facsimile Reprints of Rare Books; Literature Series; no. I), New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1903, →OCLC:

     She hutched the all-worshipt ore.

2. (mining, transitive) To wash (ore) in a box or jig.
3. (transitive, intransitive) To move with a jerk; to hitch.
   • 1956, William Golding, Pincher Martin:

     And the mind was very disinclined to hutch out of the crevice and face what must be done. […] He hauled himself out of the crevice and the air was warm so that he undressed to trousers and sweater. […] He hutched himself back against a rock with his legs sprawled apart.

• hutch up