Word.ws English Dictionary

but and ben

but and ben noun: a two-roomed cottage; a small house or shack.

Noun

but and ben

  1. (Scotland) A two-roomed cottage; a small house or shack
    • Whether the old lady had caught cold the time she moved, or whether her ailing frame had been simply worn out, she never seemed to thrive after leaving the little but and ben she had so long lived in.1898, Elizabeth Grant, Memoirs of a Highland Lady, Canongate, published 1995, page 339
    • It was no more than a butt and a ben, with a rickle of sheds behind it where old Pooty kept his cow and a bit donkey that was nearly as old as himself […]1932, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Sunset Song (A Scots Quair), Polygon, published 2006, page 30

Adverb

but and ben (not comparable)

  1. In the inner and outer parts of a building
    • to live but and ben

Questions about but and ben

What does but and ben mean?
But and ben means a two-roomed cottage; a small house or shack.
What part of speech is but and ben?
But and ben can be a noun or an adverb.

Words near but and ben in the dictionary

  1. busyness
  2. busynesse
  3. busynesses
  4. busywork
  5. but
  6. but and ben
  7. but for
  8. but for the grace of God
  9. but good
  10. but hey
  11. but if

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: but and ben (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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