1. 1. A porch or walkway bordered by colonnades.
   2. A platform extending outdoors from a floor of a house or apartment building.
2. An open, often paved area adjacent to a house serving as an outdoor living space; a patio.
3. A raised bank of earth having vertical or sloping sides and a flat top: turning a hillside into a series of ascending terraces for farming.
4. A flat, narrow stretch of ground, often having a steep slope facing a river, lake, or sea.
5. 1. A row of buildings erected on raised ground or on a sloping site.
   2. A section of row houses.
   3. (Abbr. Ter. or Terr.) A residential street, especially on a slope or hill.
6. A narrow strip of landscaped earth in the middle of a street.
7. Chiefly Upper Northern & Midwestern U.S. See parking (sense 3). See Regional Note at parking.

1. To provide (a house, for example) with a terrace or terraces.
2. To form (a hillside or sloping lawn, for example) into terraces.

[French, from Old French, from Old Provençal terrassa, from Vulgar Latin *terrācea, feminine of *terrāceus, earthen, from Latin terra, earth.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.