thatch
/θæt͡ʃ/
thatch noun: straw, rushes, or similar, used for making or covering the roofs of buildings, or of stacks of hay or grain.
Noun
thatch (countable and uncountable, plural thatches)
- Straw, rushes, or similar, used for making or covering the roofs of buildings, or of stacks of hay or grain.
- Just over halfway up, we reached the Human settlement with its houses of stone and wood and thatch. This was a prewar place.1989, Octavia E. Butler, “Part III, Chapter 7”, in Imago, page 210
- Synonyms:
- haulm
- Any of several kinds of palm, the leaves of which are used for thatching.
- A buildup of cut grass, stolons or other material on the soil in a lawn.
- Mark Ladd, the venue’s assistant director of operations, notes that the fake greenery looks authentic: the height and colour of the blades are varied, with a few brown ones thrown in to emulate dead thatch.2015 May 30, Rob Kuznia, “California turns to fake grass in response to drought”, in The Guardian
- Any strawlike material, such as a person's hair.
- Brown was a compact dark-skinned man in his forties, with strong features and a dense thatch of brown hair that sprang from his crown at an angle, though it had been brushed to either side of an indeterminate part.2008, Harriet A. Washington, “Profitable Wonders”, in Medical Apartheid, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, page 52
- An outgoing, story-telling Irishman from Butte, Montana, with his thatch of red hair and sandpapered face, Matt was the quintessential imp.2008, Wallace Madding, The Country Club Killings: A Montana Story, page 21
Verb
thatch (third-person singular simple present thatches, present participle thatching, simple past and past participle thatched)
- To cover the roof with straw, reed, leaves, etc.
Proper noun capitalized: Thatch
Thatch (plural Thatches)
- A surname.
thatch meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada
thatch in Tamil
- கூரை
thatch in Urdu
- چھانا
thatch in Malayalam
- പുൽമേച്ചിൽ, വൈക്കോൽ, മേച്ചിൽ
thatch in Kannada
- ಮುಳಿಮಾಡು, ಹುಲ್ಲುಮಾಡು
More languagesFewer languages
- thatch in Gujarati
- છાજ chāj, છાવું chāvũ
- thatch in Odia
- ଛାଇବା chāibā, ଛାପିବା chāpibā
- thatch in Assamese
- উলূ ulu, শৰণ খেৰ xoron kher, ঘৰছোৱা বন ghorsüa bon
- thatch in Nepali
- खर khar
- thatch in Malay
- atap
- thatch in Persian
- گالی gâli, کلش kolaš, گالیپوش کردن gâli-puš kardan
- thatch in Thai
- คา kaa
- thatch in Vietnamese
- tranh
Examples of thatch in a sentence
- The heavy chimney beetled over the thatched roof.
- Meanwhile, in Ch'eng-tu, beyond the Ch'in Ling Mountains, Tu Fu found his thatch hut.
- He then retrieved a metal thatch rake and used it to tamp down the ashes.
Synonyms of thatch
Forms of thatch
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | thatches |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | thatches |
| present participle | thatching |
| past participle | thatched |
| past | thatched |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Thatches |
Origin of thatch
Variant of thack, from Middle English thache, thach, from Old English þæc (“roof-covering”), from Proto-West Germanic *þak, from Proto-Germanic *þaką (“covering”), from (o-grade of) Proto-Indo-European *(s)teg- (“cover”). Cognate with Icelandic þak, Dutch dak, German Dach, Norwegian tak, Swedish tak, Danish tag; and with Latin toga, Albanian thak (“awn, beard, pin, peg, tassel, fringe”), Lithuanian stogas (“roof”), Welsh to (“roof”). Related to Ancient Greek τέγος (tégos, “roof”) and στέγη (stégē, “roof”). See also English deech, deck.
From Middle English thacchen, from Old English þeċċan, þeċċean (“to cover”), from Proto-West Germanic *þakkjan, from Proto-Germanic *þakjaną (“to cover”), from Proto-Germanic *þaką (“cover, covering”, noun) (see above). Cognate with West Frisian dekke, Dutch dekken, German decken, Danish tække, Swedish täcka. Alteration of vowel after Middle English perhaps due to the above noun.
From thatch.
Words formed from thatch
- bethatch
- overthatch
- rethatch
- thatched
- thatcher
- thatching
- unthatch
- Thatch weave
- big thatch
- dethatch
- silver thatch
- thatchless
- thatchlike
- thatch rake
- thatch-rake
- thatchwork
- thatchy
- underthatch
Phrases with thatch
Words that rhyme with thatch
Questions about thatch
- What does thatch mean?
- Thatch means straw, rushes, or similar, used for making or covering the roofs of buildings, or of stacks of hay or grain.
- What is thatch in Tamil?
- Thatch in Tamil is கூரை. See Thatch meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is thatch?
- Thatch can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce thatch?
- Thatch is pronounced /θæt͡ʃ/.
- What is the plural of thatch?
- The plural of thatch is thatches.
Words near thatch in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: thatch (page history and authors); Thatch (page history and authors); thatch (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); thatch (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); thatch (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); thatch (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); છાજ (Gujarati) (page history and authors); ଛାଇବା (Odia) (page history and authors); खर (Nepali) (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-thatch.ogg.
Cite this entry: “thatch.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/thatch. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.