hutch

plural hutches

1. A box, chest, crate, case or cabinet.
2. A coop or cage for keeping small animals (rabbits, guinea pigs, dogs, etc).

   “No place for rabbits now, but I could easy build a few hutches and you could feed alfalfa to the rabbits.”

   1937, John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men, New York: Covici Friede, page 100

   2 more examples

   To reach the courtroom, on the second floor, one passed sundry sunless county cubbyholes: the tax assessor,... the circuit clerk, the judge of probate lived in cool dim hutches that smelled[…]

   1960 July 11, Harper Lee, chapter 16, in To Kill a Mockingbird, Philadelphia, Pa.; New York, N.Y.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott Company, →OCLC

   In 1880, Punch commented that the London & South Western Railway directors must have been keen rabbit fanciers, "for the number of hutches scattered over their 'system' is enormous". Yet, "these hutches are not for rabbits, but for humans, and they are technically known as 'Country Stations'".

   2023 September 6, David Turner, “Best-kept stations: roots in railway's past”, in RAIL, number 991, page 54

3. A piece of furniture in which items may be displayed.
4. A cabinet for storing dishes.
5. A piece of furniture (cabinet) to be placed on top of a desk.
6. A measure of two Winchester bushels.
7. businessThe case of a flour bolt.
8. businessA car on low wheels, in which coal is drawn in the mine and hoisted out of the pit.
9. businessA jig or trough for ore dressing or washing ore.
10. A baker's kneading-trough.
11. slangball gamesThe pavilion or dressing room.
12. An embankment built in a river to check erosion caused by running water.

    There were deep pools in the river, known as hutch pools because they are formed by hutches - breakwaters - built out from the bank.

    1977, K.M. Elizabeth Murray, Caught in the Web of Words, Oxford: Oxford University Press, page 35

present singular third person hutches · participle present hutching · participle past hutched · past hutched

1. transitiveTo hoard or lay up, in a chest.

   She hutched the all-worshipt ore.

   Comus

   1634 October 9 (first performance; Gregorian calendar), [John Milton], edited by H[enry] Lawes, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: […] [Comus], London: […] [Augustine Matthews] for Hvmphrey Robinson, […], published 1637, →OCLC; reprinted as Comus: […] (Dodd, Mead & Company’s Facsimile Reprints of Rare Books; Literature Series; no. I), New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1903, →OCLC

2. transitivebusinessTo wash (ore) in a box or jig.
3. ambitransitiveTo move with a jerk; to hitch.

   And the mind was very disinclined to hutch out of the crevice and face what must be done. […] He hauled himself out of the crevice and the air was warm so that he undressed to trousers and sweater. […] He hutched himself back against a rock with his legs sprawled apart.

   1956, William Golding, Pincher Martin

1. A male given name.
2. A surname.