from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- adj. Having or characterized by a single slope or pitch: a lean-to roof; lean-to construction.
- n. A structure with a single-pitch roof that is attached to the side of a building as a wing or an extension.
- n. A shelter or shed having a roof with a single slope or pitch.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- n. A shelter with a sloped roof; also a building with a similar construction attached to the side of a building as an extension.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- adj. Having only one slope or pitch; -- said of a roof.
- n. A shed or slight building placed against the wall of a larger structure and having a single-pitched roof; -- called also penthouse, and to-fall.
- n. A crude, usually temporary shelter comprising a lean-to roof braced against any convenient support, as a wall, a tree or a pole. The roof may extend all the way to the ground.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Having rafters or supports pitched against or leaning on another building, a wall, or the like: as, a lean-to roof.
- n. A building whose rafters or supports pitch against or lean upon another building, or against a wall, or the like; a penthouse.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- n. rough shelter whose roof has only one slope
How does a disadvantaged teen, who is living in a lean-to in a remote village in Kenya, gain access to a college education, when most of her peers become parents in high school?
The cooking being done in the small, lean-to kitchen, the whole cabin formed a large living room.
I lived in the lean-to the first year; then I built the cabin and sent for my books.
I looked up from the shelter of our lean-to, and there he stood.
Even a lean-to needs two uprights and a crosspiece.
Consider yourself lucky and use that Lone Star flag of yours as a lean-to.
Poverty here is similarly appalling, not only in Chennai's slums, but throughout the city, where makeshift lean-to's butt up against the walls of the Madras High Court.
Jared Ropelato's lean-to – a crude structure the Boy Scout manual advises Scouts to build if they become lost – kept him warm enough so he could sleep after the overnight low in Ashley National Forest dipped to 31 degrees in the area, said Daggett County sheriff's spokeswoman Karen Peterson.
Peterson also praised the boy, saying that building the lean-to was "good thinking" and it saved him from the elements.
The Americans were taken to a POW compound where there were already some 25 Americans held in a small, fenced-in area, with only a small lean-to in one corner to shield prisoners from the weather.