[f. VILLA + -KIN.] A little villa; a villa-residence.
Chiefly in familiar or jocular use, or with some degree of disparagement.
1730. Swift, Lett. to Gay, 19 March. I writ lately to Mr. Pope: I wish you had a little Villakin in his neighbourhood.
1730. Gay, Lett. to Swift, 31 March. I am every day building villakins and have given over that of castles.
1805. J. Almon, Corr. Wilkes, V. 79. In this cottage (or villakin, as he usually termed it) he passed the pleasantest hours which he had enjoyed since the period of his adversities.
1823. Hampshire Telegraph & Sussex Chron., 4 Aug., 2/5. I have been led into a train of meditation on the hackneyed theme of the instability and vanity of human distinctions, and have felt their utter worthlessness and perishable nature, by an examination of the Villakin of the late John Wilkes.
1841. Tait’s Mag., VIII. 258. The villakin was transformed into a domestic paradise.
1883. Miss Broughton, Belinda, II. 159. Spick and span villas and villakins, each with its half acre of tennis-ground and double daisies.
