outhouse

• out-house (archaic)

From Middle English outhous, equivalent to out- +‎ house. Compare Old Norse úthús (“outhouse”).

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outhouse (plural outhouses)

1. (Canada, US) An outbuilding, typically permanent, containing a toilet or seat over a cesspit.
2. (dated) Any outbuilding: any small structure located apart from a main building.
   • 1929, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Disintegration Machine‎:

     There was a considerable outhouse, which he unlocked and we entered.

   • 1943 November – 1944 February (date written; published 1945 August 17), George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Animal Farm […], London: Secker & Warburg, published May 1962, →OCLC:

     […] plenty of sand and cement had been found in one of the outhouses

• (outer building used for urination and defecation): See Thesaurus:outhouse
• (any small outer building): See outbuilding

• house

• built like a brick outhouse

outhouse (third-person singular simple present outhouses, present participle outhousing, simple past and past participle outhoused)

1. (transitive) To house in a separate building.
   • 1969, Great Britain. National Libraries Committee, Frederick Sydney Dainton, Report of the National Libraries Committee (page 85)

     In our discussion of outhousing we have tried to take into account the inconvenience to users as well as the potential savings in costs.

   • 1975, Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons, Sessional Papers, volume 28, page 38:

     The Information Department is outhoused but there are operational reasons for this and it would, in any case, be physically impossible to house the staff of the Department in the main building.