round house

Noun

roundhouse (plural roundhouses)

1. A circular prison, especially a small local lockup or station house.
   • [T]he gentlemen in the coffee room insisted upon the watch being called, or a constable. With considerable difficulty the two heroes were carried off to the round-house, and there lodged for the night.1808–10, William Hickey, Memoirs of a Georgian Rake, Folio Society 1995, p. 137
2. A traditional circular dwelling elevated on stilts with a conical roof found in part of Southeast Asia.
   • All the time six or eight large Chinese gongs were being beaten by the vigorous arms of as many young men, producing such a deafening discord that I was glad to escape to the round house, where I slept very comfortably with half a dozen smoke-dried human skulls suspended over my head.1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume I, London: Macmillan and Co., page 110
3. A prehistoric dwelling typical of northwest Europe in the Iron Age and Bronze Age.
   • A central stone slab cist containing the burial was surrounded by a circles of stones placed on edge, probably to represent the round house in which the deceased had lived.2019, Alan Staniforth, Cleveland Way, page 66
4. (historical) The uppermost room or cabin of any note upon the stern of a ship.
5. (historical) A privy near the bow of a vessel, especially as reserved for officers.
6. A circular building in which locomotives are housed, sometimes with a turntable.
   • Crewe North Motive Power Depot is to be modernised completely. This includes the provision of a new coaling plant, ash handling plant, and two new locomotive sheds of the latest roundhouse type, each with 32 roads radiating from a 70-ft. dia. turntable.1948 November and December, “Crewe M.P.D. to be Modernised”, in Railway Magazine, page 372

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