homestead
noun
a dwelling with its land and buildings, occupied by the owner as a home and exempted by a homestead law from seizure or sale for debt.
homestead
1 American
[hohm-sted, -stid]
/ ˈhoʊm stɛd, -stɪd /
noun
-
homesteads
plural
-
a dwelling with its land and buildings, occupied by the owner as a home and exempted by a homestead law from seizure or sale for debt.
-
any dwelling with its land and buildings where a family makes its home.
-
a tract of land acquired under the Homestead Act.
-
a house in an urban area acquired under a homesteading program.
verb (used with object)
verb (used without object)
Homestead
2
American
[hohm-sted, -stid]
/ ˈhoʊm stɛd, -stɪd /
noun
homestead
British
/ ˈhəʊmˌstɛd, -stɪd /
noun
-
a house or estate and the adjoining land, buildings, etc, esp a farm
-
(in the US) a house and adjoining land designated by the owner as his fixed residence and exempt under the homestead laws from seizure and forced sale for debts
-
(in western Canada) a piece of land, usually 160 acres, granted to a settler by the federal government
-
the owner's or manager's residence on a sheep or cattle station; in New Zealand the term includes all outbuildings
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of homestead
First recorded before 1000; Old English hāmstede; equivalent to home + stead
Explanation
A homestead is a house and surrounding land owned by a family — often, it includes a farmhouse. Most people have homes, but not everyone has a homestead: that means your family owns more than a house. The homestead often consists of a farmhouse and land devoted to crops or animals. You'll find a lot more homesteads in rural areas than in cities. Often, a homestead is passed down from parents to children for generations.
Vocabulary lists containing homestead
There's No Word Like Home
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Life Is So Good
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Purple Hibiscus
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Periodically, the soft-spoken and generous man flies his Cessna into town to scavenge soda pop for a dozen or so cherubic Mennonite children on a nearby homestead.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 28, 2026
If, for example, the home was a Florida homestead property titled solely in your name, and you were survived by your husband and children, Florida law generally provides that your spouse receives a life estate.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 22, 2026
The Carney homestead, located in the townland of Ayle, was a standard rural dwelling of the time: a thatched cottage with two windows in the front.
From BBC ● Jun. 14, 2026
And for her children, Ashley and Hunter, more present at the homestead in the wake of their father’s diagnosis.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 2, 2026
Back when Pa came home with his homestead papers, saying we’d be moving to Nebraska come spring, Ma’d let her anger out in short hot bursts only Pa could hear.
From "Worth" by A. LaFaye
Consider a historic footnote from World War II. Shortly after Pearl Harbor in 1941, all the Germans and Japanese in their embassies in Washington were sent under guard to the luxurious Greenbrier and Homestead resorts.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 10, 2026
The uprooting of prairies across the Great Plains and the Dust Bowl could not have occurred without the massive settler movement triggered by the Homestead Act of 1862.
From Salon ● Jun. 21, 2025
While Homestead will not face the brunt of the storm, he said it was "too risky" to stay, although most of his neighbours "don't want to leave".
From BBC ● Oct. 9, 2024
But you don’t have to do much walking to see plenty at the Urban Homestead.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 8, 2024
They headed for the Homestead, Chuck yapping the whole time.
From "The Maze Runner" by James Dashner
Neighbors judge one another for selling off family homesteads to developers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 30, 2026
And because of their ability to do that, it enabled humans to sort of stay in one place, not be so nomadic, to build farms and homesteads.
From Salon ● Apr. 23, 2024
They say there has also been an increase in the number of hippos, who bathe near the shores and now even closer to people's homesteads.
From BBC ● Sep. 5, 2023
Staff from the agency’s Chicago office planned to survey storm damage Wednesday in the Gibson City area, where at least two homesteads suffered damage and power lines were knocked down.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 4, 2023
The townlands were rich, with wide tilth and many orchards, and homesteads there were with oast and garner, fold and byre, and many rills rippling through the green from the highlands down to Anduin.
From "The Return of the King" by J.R.R. Tolkien
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
