curtilage
A small piece of land, such as a garth or yard with the buildings and structures on…A small piece of land, such as a garth or yard with the buildings and structures on it, immediately surrounding a dwelling house and legally regarded as part of its property; originally, such areas were enclosed by a fence or wall.
Meaning
1 sensesA small piece of land, such as a garth or yard with the buildings and structures on it, immediately surrounding a dwelling house and legally regarded as part of its property; originally, such areas were enclosed by a fence or wall.
Coordinate term: messuage
- the enclosed land around a house or other building
Origin
Inherited from Middle English courtelage, curtilage, curtylage (“vegetable garden; croft;Inherited from Middle English courtelage, curtilage, curtylage (“vegetable garden; croft; gardening, farming”), from Anglo-Norman curtilage, from Old French cortillage, courtillage (modern French courtillage (obsolete); compare Medieval Latin cortilagium, curtilagium), from cortil, cortill (“small court, garth”) + -age (suffix denoting a relationship with a place). Cortil, cortill are derived from cort, curt (“court of a monarch”) + -il (suffix forming place names); and cort, curt from Latin cōrtem, the accusative singular form of cōrs, a variant of cohors (“court; enclosure; farmyard; etc.”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ḱóm (“beside, by; near; with”) + *ǵʰer- (“to enclose”).
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