Other forms: patios
A patio is a paved area beside a house for sitting out. Slabs, a table, and a barbecue nobody has cleaned.
It arrived in British gardens in the second half of the twentieth century and reshaped what people expected a garden to do. Paving, decking and a terrace are the neighbouring options, and a terrace is usually raised. Patio doors are the sliding glass ones that open onto it. The word is Spanish, where it means an inner courtyard, which is rather grander than a British one.
1nounpatioA paved outdoor area next to a house.
“They sat out on the patio until it got cold.”
Old Occitan
patu
Spanish
patio
English, today
patio
From Spanish patio, either from Old Occitan patu or pati (compare Occitan and Catalan pati), of uncertain origin.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA