cottager
(ˈkɒtɪdʒə(r))
Forms: 6 cottyger, cotiger, coticher, 6–7 cotager, 7– cottager, (6 cotinger, 7 cottinger).
[f. cottage + -er1.]
One who lives in a cottage; used esp. of the labouring population in rural districts.
(Johnson's statement, repeated in later Dicts., ‘A cottager, in law, is one that lives on the common, without paying rent, and without any land of his own,’ is a mere error, app. due to misunderstanding a passage in Bacon.)
| 1550 Lever Serm. ii. (Arb.) 82 The poore cotingers..had y⊇ mylke for a very small hyre. 1555 Act 2–3 Phil. & Mary c. 8 §2 Every Cottager and Labourer of that Parish. 1590 Vestry Bks. (Surtees) 29 Everie landlorde shall answere for there cotichers for the payment of ij d. in the yeare for bread and wyne. 1622 Bacon Hen. VII (J.), The yeomanry, or middle people, of a condition between gentlemen and cottagers. 1741 Richardson Pamela III. 175 Here..the proud Cottager will needs be a Lady, in Hope to conceal her Descent. 1795 Southey Joan of Arc v. 93 But little cause to love the mighty ones Hath the low cottager. 1853 Miss Mitford in L'Estrange Life III. xiv. 257 They are living in a hut on the borders of Loch Achray, playing at cottagers, as rich people like to do. |
b. As an equivalent of cottar 2.
| 1776 Adam Smith W.N. i. x. I. 122 There still subsists in many parts of Scotland a set of people called Cotters or Cottagers..They are a sort of out-servants of the landlords and farmers. 1792 Statist. Acc. Fife V. 383 (Jam.) Upon the different farms, a cottager, or, as he is commonly called, a cotter, is kept for each plough employed on the farm. 1825–79 Jamieson, Cottown, A small village or hamlet, possessed by cottars or cottagers, dependent on the principal farm. |
c. U.S. One who lives in a summer residence or villa of his own at a watering-place, etc.
| 1882 Nation (N.Y.) 7 Sept. 196 The summer season closed last week for the great body of the Boarders at summer resorts. The ‘Cottagers,’ or persons who, when they go to the country, live in their own houses, will stay nearly three months longer. 1883 Ibid. 9 Aug. 111 An illustration of the conflict between the Boarder and the Cottager at our leading summer resorts, and especially those of the seaside. |
d. cottager's dance: an old-fashioned kind of country-dance.
| 1887 Spon's Househ. Man., Drawingroom 622 Old Fashioned Dances..Cottager's:—4 people stand for this as in the quadrille. |