pent|house

pent|house «PEHNT _HOWS», noun.

1. an apartment or house built on the top of a building.

2. a small roofed structure over an elevator shaft, in which the motor, pulley wheels, and other mechanisms, are housed.

3. a sloping roof projecting from a building, as to shelter a door.

4. a shed with a sloping roof, attached to a building.

5. any one of various structures like a sloping roof, such as a shed for the protection of besiegers or a covering formed of soldiers' shields held over their heads.

╂[alteration of Middle English pentis, apparently short for Old French apentis lean-to (influenced by pente slope), learned borrowing from Medieval Latin appendicium an attached building < Latin appendere to append]