country-house

plural country-houses

1. alternativeAlternative form of country house.

   In Italy, though they bide in Cities in Winter, which is more Gentle-man-like, all the Summer they come abroad to their country-houſes, to recreate themſelves.

   1638, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], “Ayre rectified. With a digression of the Ayre.”, in The Anatomy of Melancholy. […], 5th edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] [Robert Young, Miles Flesher, and Leonard Lichfield and William Turner] for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition 2, section 2, member 3, page 260

   5 more examples

   Miss Crawford was not entirely free from similar apprehensions, though they arose principally from doubts of her sister’s style of living and tone of society; and it was not till after she had tried in vain to persuade her brother to settle with her at his own country-house, that she could resolve to hazard herself among her other relations.

   1814 May 9, [Jane Austen], chapter IV, in Mansfield Park: […], volume I, London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC, page 82

   In every direction along the côteaux which skirt this beautiful drive, we find country-houses, whose situations are judiciously chosen in reference to the views and freedom from atmospheric inconveniences.

   1842, A[lexander] Taylor, On the Curative Influence of the Climate of Pau, and the Mineral Waters of the Pyrenees, on Disease. […], London: John W. Parker, […], page 334

   The city of Gotham is an island, as we have said; and once it was a beautiful island, affording to the gaze of him who sailed along its shores, an agreeable mixture of rock and grove, topping hill and marshy low ground, sparkling here and there with the villas or country-houses of the wealthy Gothamites, mostly built of wood painted white, and adorned with long verandahs quite encircling them; or showing at some turn a humbler, but substantial abode, nooked under a mighty horse-chestnut, the head-quarters of a milk-farm, with cattle (whose tinkling bells you could hear in the still evening) grazing on its wild up-hilly pasture-land.

   1860, Jedediah Vincent Huntington, A Tale of Real Life, Or, Blonde and Brunette, page 8

   Spite of the dark cloud which in those Puritan days overhung all diversions and every cheerful pastime, the little book won its way to many a sunny window-sill in English country-houses, and accompanied many anglers to the water side; for in two years' time another edition was required.

   1876 May 29, Rev. M[organ] G[eorge] Watkins, “Izaak Walton”, in Fraser's Magazine, page 633

   Our eyes turned to the great bow-window and we looked out at the summer beauty of the country-side, the long slopes of heather, the great country-houses, the cozy farms, the pleasure-seekers upon the links.

   1913, Arthur Conan Doyle, “(please specify the page)”, in The Poison Belt […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC