the.com/kitchenette
a full kitchen's ego crammed into a closet's footprint, refusing to apologize.
means A small, compact kitchen — or a tiny kitchen area within a larger room — fitted with the essentials but scaled down to fit limited space.
from From "kitchen" plus the diminutive suffix "-ette," borrowed from French, where it shrinks whatever it touches (think "cigarette," a little cigar, or "statuette"). "Kitchen" itself traces back through Old English "cycene" to Latin "coquina," from "coquere," to cook. The "-ette" tag became fashionable for marketing compact American living spaces in the early 20th century, when apartments and efficiency units needed a flattering name for a stove squeezed against a wall.
- name origin
- French diminutive suffix added to English kitchen, coined early 1900s
- apartment boom
- Popularized by 1920s urban studios for single working renters
- no oven
- Often skips a full oven for counter appliances
- hotel staple
- Now defines extended-stay suites worldwide
- square feet
- Can function in under 30 square feet
pullman car kitchenette — compact kitchen in railroad sleeping cars, standard feature from 1870s-1960s
studio apartment kitchenette — minimal cooking space in small urban apartments, common in nyc and other cities since 1920s