Editing Cottage (section)

{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2021}}
{{Short description|Dwelling type}}
{{About|the small house or dwelling||Cottage (disambiguation)}}
<!--0px|A typical thatched cottage in [[Yealmpton]], Devon, England, built many centuries ago. Although it looks attractive, it was built as a purely functional building with no thought given to [[aesthetics]]]]-->
[[File:Country cottage, Inch Island - geograph.org.uk - 3951065 (cropped).jpg|thumb|A cottage on [[Inch Island]], Ireland]]

A '''cottage''', during [[Feudalism in England|England's feudal period]], was the holding by a cottager (known as a [[Cotter (farmer)|cotter]] or ''bordar'') of a small house with enough garden to feed a family and in return for the cottage, the cottager had to provide some form of service to the [[Lord of the manor|manorial lord]].<ref name="mcgarry242">Daniel D. McGarry, ''Medieval history and civilization'' (1976) p 242</ref> However, in time cottage just became the general term for a small house. In modern usage, a cottage is usually a modest, often cosy [[dwelling]], typically in a rural or semi-rural location and not necessarily in England. The [[cottage orné]], often quite large and grand residences built by the nobility, dates back to a movement of "rustic" stylised cottages of the late 18th and early 19th century during the Romantic movement. 

In [[British English]] the term now denotes a small, cosy dwelling of traditional build, although it can also be applied to modern construction designed to resemble traditional houses ("[[wikt:faux|mock]] cottages"). Cottages may be detached houses, or [[terraced house|terraced]], such as those built to house workers in mining villages. The [[Tied cottage|tied accommodation]] provided to farm workers was usually a cottage, see [[cottage garden]]. In England the term [[holiday cottage]] now denotes a specialised form of residential let property, attracting various tax benefits to the owner.

The [[holiday cottage]] exists in many cultures under different names. In [[Canadian English]] and [[American English]], "cottage" is one term for such holiday homes, although they may also be called a "cabin", "[[chalet]]", or even "camp". In Australia, the term "cabin" is common, cottage usually referring to a smaller pre-modern period dwelling. In certain countries (e.g. [[Nordic countries|Nordics]], [[Baltic states|Baltics]], and Russia) the term "cottage" has local synonyms: In Finnish ''mökki'', in Estonian ''suvila'', in Latvian ''vasarnīca'', in Livonian ''sõvvõkuodā'', in Swedish ''stuga'', in Norwegian ''hytte'' (from the German word ''Hütte''), in Czech or Slovak ''chata'' or ''chalupa'', in Russian ''дача'' (''[[dacha]]'').<ref name="Variety of cottages">{{Cite web|url=https://vsekottedzhi.com.ua/news/raznovidnosti-kottedzhej-i-chto-luchshe-vybrat|title=Разновидности коттеджей. Что лучше выбрать|website=vsekottedzhi.com.ua}}</ref>

In places such as Canada, "cottage" carries no connotations of size (compare with [[Clergy house|vicarage]] or [[Hermitage (religious retreat)|hermitage]]).