[Cf. WFris. simmerhûs, MDu. somerhuys (Du. zomerhuis), MHG. sum(m)erhaus (G. sommerhaus).]
1. A summer residence in the country. Now rare.
1[?]. Cust. of Newington by Sittingbourne, in Cowel’s Interpr. (1701). Homines quoque de walda debent unam domum æstivalem quæ Anglice dicitur Sumer-hus invenire, aut viginti solidos dare.
1382. Wyclif, Amos iii. 15. Y shal smyte the wyntyr hous with the somer hous [Vulg. dowo æstiva].
1596. Shaks., 1 Hen. IV., III. i. 164. I had rather liue With Cheese and Garlick in a Windmill farre, Than feede on Cates, and haue him talke to me, In any Summer-House in Christendome.
1654. Gataker, Disc. Apol., 50. The Doctor making onelie a Summer-House of it.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. xii. 453/1. Summer Houses, Bowers, Places to which the Gentry resort, and abide there dureing the Summer season, for their Recreation and pastime.
a. 1709. J. Lister, Autobiog. (1842), 35. At present her summer-house is in Highgate.
1797. W. Johnston, trans. Beckmann’s Invent., II. 38. [Privies] are at present considered to be so indispensably necessary, that few summer-houses are constructed without them.
1881. Daily News, 26 Sept., 5/2. Its very nearness to London perhaps has made it less of an actual residence and more of a holiday summer-house than it would otherwise have been.
fig. 1754. Fielding, Voy. Lisbon, Wks. 1882, VII. 82. The wind … slyly slipped back again to his summer-house in the south-west.
2. A building in a garden or park, usually of very simple and often rustic character, designed to provide a cool shady place in the heat of summer.
c. 1440. Pallad. on Husb., I. 347. Lest the sonne in somer do hit harm, Thi somer hous northest & west let wrie.
1577. B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb., 34 b. French Beanes … climeth aloft,… seruyng well for the shadowyng of Herbers and Summer houses.
1585. Higins, Junius’ Nomencl., 389/2. Horti adonidis,… a banketting summer house made of trees, herbs, flowers, &c.
1624. Wotton, Archit., II. 100. [Paintings of] Land-schips, and Boscage … in open Tarraces, or in Summer houses.
1721. Mortimer, Husb., II. 206. Summer-Houses may … be erected at each Corner [of the garden], and made so as to let in the Air on all sides, or to exclude it.
1762–71. H. Walpole, Vertue’s Anecd. Paint. (1786), IV. 275. At the end of the terras-walk are two summer-houses.
1824. Scott, St. Ronan’s, xxxvii. One of her gloves lay on the small rustic table in the summer-house.
1888. Miss Braddon, Fatal Three, I. vi. There was an old stone summer-house in each angle of that end wall.
† b. An arbor or the like used in connection with the ‘summer-game.’ Obs.
1519. Test. Ebor. (Surtees), V. 103. In quo … horreo … loco adtunc vulgariter dicto Somer-house, prædicta Margareta More,… permansit … jocundam se faciendo in eodem.
