Thatched describes a roof made of dried plant material — straw, reeds, palm leaves, grass — laid in thick layers so the rain runs off the outside and the inside stays dry. You use it before a noun almost every time: a thatched roof, a thatched cottage, a thatched hut. A building can be called thatched too, and when someone says "a thatched house" they mean the roof, not the walls. The word comes with pictures attached, and which picture depends on where you are. In Britain it says *old and pretty*: small country cottages with heavy golden roofs, the kind on postcards, expensive to buy and expensive to keep because the thatch must be replaced every few decades and the fire risk is high. In much of Asia, Africa, and the Pacific it says something quite different — ordinary local building, cheap, cool in hot weather, still in everyday use, or else the deliberately rustic style of a beach resort. Neither picture is wrong; the word simply sits in two worlds. It comes from the verb *thatch*, meaning to cover a roof this way, and a person whose job that is is called a thatcher.