Word.ws English Dictionary

back-house

back-house is the alternative form of backhouse.

Meaning of backhouse

Noun

backhouse (plural backhouses)

  1. (dialectal) An outbuilding behind the main building, or an annex attached to the rear of it; especially, a scullery or washhouse.
    • […] to abstene […] fra all melting […] of talloun within thair bak hous […]1557, Edinburgh Burgh Records, volume III, page 17
  2. (Canada, US, euphemistic) An outhouse: an outbuilding used as a lavatory.
    • BACK'HOUSE... a necessary.1847, Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language
    Synonyms:
    backside

See all 3 meanings of backhouse

Forms of back-house

pluralback-houses

Questions about back-house

What is back-house the alternative form of?
Back-house is the alternative form of backhouse.

Words near back-house in the dictionary

  1. back-hands
  2. back-heel
  3. back-heeled
  4. back-heeling
  5. back-heels
  6. back-house
  7. back-houses
  8. back-matter
  9. back-ne
  10. back-of-a-fag-packet
  11. back-of-an-envelope

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: back-house (page history and authors); backhouse (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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