the.com/playhouse
A house-shaped lie children tell themselves, and somehow it's the most honest room in the yard.
means A small structure built for children's imaginative play, or, in older usage, a theater where plays are performed.
from A plain Old English compound — 'play' plus 'house' — stitched together sometime in the medieval period. 'Play' itself traces back to Old English plegan, meaning to exercise, frolic, or move briskly, while 'house' is one of the oldest, sturdiest words in the language. The theatrical sense (a building for staging plays) is attested by the 1500s–1600s, when London's stages were literally called playhouses; the child's-toy-cottage sense came later, borrowing the same cozy logic — a house whose only business is play.
- origin
- 17th-century term also meant actual theaters
- scale trick
- miniature doors fool adult brains into stooping
- real estate
- often costs more per square foot than the house
- longevity
- outlasts most toys by actual decades