sb. (and a.). Also 5 lenetoo, 78 leantoo, -toe, lentoo, 8 lento, 9 U.S. dial. leanter, linter. [f. LEAN v.1 + TO adv.]
A. sb. A building whose rafters pitch against or lean on to another building or against a wall (Gwilt); a penthouse.
1461. in Archæol., XXIII. 107. Emend unius Lenetoo juxta parlur annex. Magn Aule.
1618. R. Harris, Samuels Funeral, To Rdr. (1622). Me thought it handsomer to lay all my stuffe vpon the foundation, then to set vp a leane-to.
1638. in T. Lechford, Note-Bk. (1885), 54. And also the old house and lean-toos, yard and garden thereto belonging. Ibid. (1639), 217. Provided that the said Brackenbury shall have liberty to make a leanto unto the end of the parlor.
1704. Madam S. Knight, Jrnl. (1865), 24. Shee conducted me to a parlour in a little back Lento.
1782. Phil. Trans., LXXII. 358. A wall is continued eastward having a stable built against it as a lean-to.
1854. Hawthorne, Eng. Note-Bks. (1883), I. 509. On one side of the church-tower there was a little penthouse, or lean-tomerely a stone roof, about three or four feet high, and supported by a single pillar.
1861. Mrs. Stowe, Pearl Orrs Isl., 10. A brown house of the kind that the natives call lean-to or linter.
1884. Law Times Rep., LI. 238/2. An old lean-to facing Gower-street had been raised and a room erected above it.
transf. 1871. L. Stephen, Playgr. Europe, iv. (1894), 101. A ledge of snow formed a kind of lean-to against the precipitous rock.
B. attrib. (or adj.) Belonging to or of the nature of a building such as that described in A. Also, placed so as to lean against something.
1649. in J. Merrill, Hist. Amesbury (1880), 42. A payer of hinges of one of ye doores & ye railes yt lie by ye leantoo side.
1666. Dedham Rec. (1894), IV. 122. The said bridge or foot plankes and leaneto rayles.
1833. Marryat, P. Simple, xxi. The buildings appropriated for the prisoners were built with lean-to roofs on one side.
1860. Geo. Eliot, Mill on Fl., I. iv. A lean-to pigsty.
1882. Stevenson, New Arab. Nts. (1884), 236. They had set fire to the lean-to outhouse.