Terrace vs. "balcony"

I'm surprised to learn you use the word "patio" on your side. Yours are
small, are they? In the US, a patio can be quite large, and it is as you
describe above, "a paved area outside the house," although there might
not be any lawn.


I see the dictionaries are not sure about the origin of "patio". Some
say it is ultimately from Latin patere. But American Heritage thinks:


ETYMOLOGY: Spanish, from Old Spanish, possibly from
Old Provençal patu, pati, pasture, perhaps from
Latin pactum, agreement. See pact.


I vaguely assumed that, in the US, the word arose in California (or
Southwest) from Mexican influence, but I don't know how to check that.
We do not have the word 'deck' in BrE for that type of thing. 'Verandah'
comes close to the raised up idea, but my feeling is that verandahs are not
enclosed, but have some sort of roof or awning over them. From what I've
read, having never seen one, to my knowledge, a deck can be quite open to
the sky. Hmm, well, if it's one of those classic penthouses I think I'd just
call it "the roof". In the building I currently live in in Chicago,
there's an area of roof that's open to residents which they call "the
sun deck", but that doesn't sound right to me. This building also
calls the highest floor "the penthouse floor", which is somewhat silly.
I've seen that done in New York too, however.

In my dialect, at least, there are several sorts of "porches". The
first is an open but sheltered or roofed (?) or otherwise covered area
in the front of a house that you experience before you reach the front
door proper. It has to be a level area that's large enough to hold
several standing or sitting people. The porch is reached by walking up
a small series of steps which, together with any framing ornamental
components, is properly called a "stoop", from our Dutch forerunners.
This is extremely common in fin-de-siecle middle-class houses, and
seems to be thus in a number of regions of the US, including the
Northeast and the Middle West. This is a "front porch".


Then you have porches that are closed off from the elements completely.
Sometimes this is by converting the porch into some sort of front room
of the house, but it might retain enough porchlike character (e.g., use
as a sitting room/sun room sort of place) functionally that it's still
thought of as a porch. Also in this category are the "screened-in
porches" which have been popularized by people's fear of mosquitoes and
other insects, but these are found in the back or other parts of the
house. But we're still really talking about first-floor-level porches
(ground-level isn't really accurate if the house is built on the stoop
system).


Then you have a more controversial category. For these I have to reach
into the remote corners of my native dialect, but a "porch" *can*
properly refer to (a) what some might call a "balcony" *provided we're
talking about a private house*, not an apartment; (b) something that
*would* have been a balcony, or once was a balcony, but is not open to
the elements: a little room sort of sticking out of the house with
fairly large windows. These are of course things that are more likely
to be on an upper floor.