Other forms: hutches
A hutch is the wooden house a rabbit lives in. A rabbit hutch, clean the hutch, out of the hutch.
Welfare guidance has moved sharply against small hutches: rabbits need a large run attached and company, and the traditional lone rabbit in a small box is now regarded as poor practice. Hutch is also used disparagingly of a very small dwelling: rabbit hutches, of new flats. Note that in American English a hutch is also a piece of furniture — a cabinet with shelves above it — which is the older sense.
1nounhutchThe wooden house a rabbit lives in.
“The hutch needs cleaning out about twice a week.”
hutch is an animal house.
Middle English hucche meant a storage chest, from Old French huche. The rabbit's house is named after a box, which is roughly how the animals were originally kept.
Old English
hwiċe
Middle English
hucche — storage chest
English, today
hutch
Built from
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 gem root, from Frankish hutta, from Proto-Germanic hudjō, hudjǭ (“box, hut, hutch”). Akin to Old English hȳdan (“to conceal; hide”). More at hide, hut. cricket pavilion or dressing room An extension of the rabbit metaphor.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Pets & Pet Care