A cottage is a small house of any period. It is
the equivalent of a modern villa in Europe.
Typically, it is a rural habitation in a village
or countryside. Originally, cottages housed agricultural
workers and their families. The development of industry
led to the development of weavers' cottages and
miners' cottages.
A cottage
may also denote a smallholding comprising houses,
outbuildings and supporting farmland or woods. A cottage
in this sense is thought of being barely sufficient
to support one farming family, and would typically
include only a few acres of tilled land.
In North
America, most buildings known as cottages are
used for weekend getaways by city dwellers. They
are generally located near lakes or the ocean in
wilderness areas (though not usually far from amenities)
and utilized as a place to go fishing and hiking.
