A hutch is an American English

American English

American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....

 word for a type of furniture

Furniture

Furniture is the mass noun for the movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating and sleeping in beds, to hold objects at a convenient height for work using horizontal surfaces above the ground, or to store things...

.

Now usually used to describe a set of shelves

Shelf

Shelf may refer to:* Shelf , a flat horizontal surface used for diplay and storage* Shelf , a user interface feature in the NeXTSTEP operating system* Shelf, West Yorkshire, a village in England...

 or cabinets

Cabinet (furniture)

A cabinet is usually a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors or drawers for storing miscellaneous items. Some cabinets stand alone while others are built into a wall or are attached to it like a medicine cabinet. Cabinets are typically made of wood or, now increasingly, of synthetic...

 placed on top of a lower unit with a counter

Counter

In digital logic and computing, a counter is a device which stores the number of times a particular event or process has occurred, often in relationship to a clock signal.- Electronic counters :...

 and either drawers or cabinets. Hutches are often seen in the form of desk

Desk

A desk is a furniture form and a class of table often used in a work or office setting for reading or writing on or using a computer. Desks often have one or more drawers to store office supplies and papers. Unlike a regular table, usually only one side of a desk is suitable to sit on . Not all...

s, dining room

Dining room

A dining room is a room for consuming food. In modern times it is usually adjacent to the kitchen for convenience in serving, although in medieval times it was often on an entirely different floor level...

 or kitchen

Kitchen

A kitchen is a room or part of a room used for cooking and food preparation.In the West, a modern residential kitchen is typically equipped with a stove, a sink with hot and cold running water, a refrigerator and kitchen cabinets arranged according to a modular design. Many households have a...

 furniture. Frequently referred to by furniture aficionados as a hutch dresser.

In the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, however, the term hutch referred to a tabletop set onto a base in such a way that when the table was not in use, the top pivoted to a vertical position and became the back of a chair or wider settee. In British English

British English

British English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere...

 this type of furniture is known as a monks bench

Monks bench

A monks bench is a piece of furniture where a tabletop is set onto a chest in such a way that when the table was not in use, the top pivots to a vertical position and becomes the back of a Settle....

. This was a very useful form at a time when many homes had a large room used for multiple functions, because it allowed a large dining table to swing up and out of the way.

Typically fashioned from timber

Timber

Timber may refer to:* Timber, a term common in the United Kingdom and Australia for wood materials * Timber, Oregon, an unincorporated community in the U.S...

, modern hutch dressers can range from country cottage style (frequently solid timber, sometimes adorned with ornate scrollwork

Scrollwork

Scrollwork is an element of ornamentation and graphic design using a spiral. The name comes from by the supposed resemblance to the edge-on view of a rolled parchment scroll. "Scrollwork" is today mostly used in popular language for two-dimensional decorative flourishes and arabesques of all...

) to the sleek lines of the wood grain veneer style popularised throughout the 1960s

1960s

The 1960s was the decade that started on January 1, 1960, and ended on December 31, 1969. It was the seventh decade of the 20th century.The 1960s term also refers to an era more often called The Sixties, denoting the complex of inter-related cultural and political trends across the globe...

 to 1980s

1980s

File:1980s decade montage.png|thumb|400px|From left, clockwise: The first Space Shuttle, Columbia, lifted off in 1981; American President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev eased tensions between the two superpowers, leading to the end of the Cold War; The Fall of the Berlin Wall in...

.

Many hutches from recent decade

Decade

A decade is a period of 10 years. The word is derived from the Ancient Greek dekas which means ten. This etymology is sometime confused with the Latin decas and dies , which is not correct....

s feature a mirror

Mirror

A mirror is an object that reflects light or sound in a way that preserves much of its original quality prior to its contact with the mirror. Some mirrors also filter out some wavelengths, while preserving other wavelengths in the reflection...

 in the back of the upper shelving to give the additional appearance of depth and to better display the fineries kept within (in a similar manner to a china cabinet).

Amongst the most desirable of the 1960s veneered kind are those featuring a fold down liquor compartment where the fold down compartment door serves to increase the worktop area for setting out the glassware

Glassware

This list of glassware includes drinking vessels , tableware, such as dishes, and flatware used to set a table for eating a meal, general glass items such as vases, and glasses used in the catering industry whether made of glass or plastics such as polystyrene and...

 and preparing an evening

Evening

Evening is the period between the late afternoon and night when daylight is decreasing, around dinner time at 6pm. Though the term is subjective, evening is typically understood to begin before sunset, during the close of the standard business day and extend until nightfall, the beginning of night...

 tipple

Alcoholic beverage

An alcoholic beverage is a drink containing ethanol, commonly known as alcohol. Alcoholic beverages are divided into three general classes: beers, wines, and spirits. They are legally consumed in most countries, and over 100 countries have laws regulating their production, sale, and consumption...

.

These liquor compartments often feature a mirror

Mirror

A mirror is an object that reflects light or sound in a way that preserves much of its original quality prior to its contact with the mirror. Some mirrors also filter out some wavelengths, while preserving other wavelengths in the reflection...

 at the back and frequently the inner wood veneer

Wood veneer

In woodworking, veneer refers to thin slices of wood, usually thinner than 3 mm , that are typically glued onto core panels to produce flat panels such as doors, tops and panels for cabinets, parquet floors and parts of furniture. They are also used in marquetry...

 surface of the door (becoming the worktop surface) is polished to a high lustre increasing the overall effect thus impressing guests and onlookers.

See also

• china hutch known in British English as a Welsh dresser a traditional piece of furniture used to display table ware, such as crockery, silverware and pewter-ware.