terrace

Borrowed from French terrasse, from Old Occitan terrassa, from terra (“land”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈtɛɹəs/
• Rhymes: -ɛɹəs
• Rhymes: -æɹəs

terrace (plural terraces)

1. A platform that extends outwards from a building.
   • 1909, Archibald Marshall [pseudonym; Arthur Hammond Marshall], chapter I, in The Squire’s Daughter, London: Methuen, OCLC 12026604; republished New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1919, OCLC 491297620:

     They stayed together during three dances, went out on to the terrace, explored wherever they were permitted to explore, paid two visits to the buffet, and enjoyed themselves much in the same way as if they had been school-children surreptitiously breaking loose from an assembly of grown-ups.

2. A raised, flat-topped bank of earth with sloping sides, especially one of a series for farming or leisure; a similar natural area of ground, often next to a river.
3. A row of residential houses with no gaps between them; a group of row houses.
4. (Britain, informal) A single house in such a group.
   • 2016, Jane Killick, Mind Power: Perceivers #4

     The cameraman's pace slowed down as he approached what his mind said was where Sian lived. Like all the other houses in the street, it was a Victorian terrace with a postage stamp of an overgrown garden between its front wall and the street.

5. (in the plural, chiefly Britain) The standing area at a football ground.
6. (chiefly India) The roof of a building, especially if accessible to the residents. Often used for drying laundry, sun-drying foodstuffs, exercise, or sleeping outdoors in hot weather.

• terra
• terracotta
• terrain
• terrene
• terrestrial
• terrier
• territorial
• territory

• patio

terrace (third-person singular simple present terraces, present participle terracing, simple past and past participle terraced)

1. To provide something with a terrace.
2. To form something into a terrace.

• caterer, reacter, recrate, retrace