Garret

A garret is generally synonymous in modern usage with a habitable attic or small (and possibly dismal or cramped) living space at the top of a house. In the days before lifts (elevators) this was the least prestigious position in a building, and often had sloping ceilings. It entered Middle English via Old French with a military connotation of a watchtower or something akin to a garrison, in other words a place for guards or soldiers to be quartered in a house. Like garrison it comes from an Old French word garir of ultimately Germanic origin meaning to provide or defend.

In the later 1800s, garrets became one of the defining features of Second Empire architecture in Paris, France, where large buildings were stratified socially between different floors, as the number of stairs to climb increased. Garrets were very often internal elements of the mansard roof, often with skylights or dormer windows.