thatch

CEFRB2

/θæt͡ʃ/

noun · verb

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    Dry plant material used to cover a roof.

  2. 02

    noun

    Extra detail

    A buildup of cut grass, stolons or other material on the soil in a lawn.

Examples

  • Swazi women traditionally plait grass to make thatch roofs for their homes.

  • The roof is made of thatch.

At a glance

Sits at B2 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
2
Citations
4
Synonyms
1

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

  1. Any of several kinds of palm, the leaves of which are used for thatching.

  2. Straw, rushes, or similar, used for making or covering the roofs of buildings, or of stacks of hay or grain.

verb

Extra meaning

  1. To cover the roof with straw, reed, leaves, etc.

More examples

In context

  • Just over halfway up, we reached the Human settlement with its houses of stone and wood and thatch. This was a prewar place.

  • 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.

  • An outgoing, story-telling Irishman from Butte, Montana, with his thatch of red hair and sandpapered face, Matt was the quintessential imp.

Synonyms

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The roof of the old house was covered with blank made from dried reeds.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

noun

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.