hovel

noun

1. An open shed for sheltering cattle, or protecting produce, etc., from the weather.
2. (derogatory)A poor cottage; a small, mean house; a hut.

   “'Behold! once more I kiss thee, and by that kiss I give to thee dominion over sea and earth, over the peasant in his hovel, over the monarch in his palace halls, and cities crowned with towers, and those who breathe therein.'”

   “The hovel stood in the centre of what had once been a vegetable garden, but was now a patch of rank weeds. Surrounding this, almost like a zareba, was an irregular ring of gorse and brambles, an unclaimed vestige of the original common.”

   “I have to say it again, my Dearest Friend. What a wonderful Comedown for the Godhead! What a wonderful Comeuppance for Humankind! That’s because You, Lord God, Creator, Bellows Maker of All That Breathes, deigned to come to my hovel of a soul; once there, to fatten up the leanness of my soul with the plumpitude of Your Sacrament; that’s to say, with the plenitude of Your Divinity and Humanity.”

3. In the manufacture of porcelain, a large, conical brick structure around which the firing kilns are grouped.
4. (Midwestern-US, archaic, slang)A straitjacket.

verb

1. (transitive)To put in a hovel; to shelter.

   “To hovel thee with swine, and rogues forlorn.”

   “The poor are hovell'd and hustled together.”

2. (transitive)To construct a chimney so as to prevent smoking, by making two of the more exposed walls higher than the others, or making an opening on one side near the top.