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• house
  house

  noun

  a building in which people live; residence for human beings.
• House
  House

  noun

  Edward Mandell Colonel House, 1858–1938, U.S. diplomat.

house

¹ American  

[hous, houz] / haʊs, haʊz /

noun

• houses
  plural

1. a building in which people live; residence for human beings.

   Synonyms:

   abode, domicile

2. a household.

3. (often initial capital letter) a family, including ancestors and descendants.

   the great houses of France; the House of Hapsburg.

4. a building for any purpose.

   a house of worship.

5. a theater, concert hall, or auditorium.

   a vaudeville house.

6. the audience of a theater or the like.

7. a place of shelter for an animal, bird, etc. (usually used in combination).

   a doghouse.

8. the building in which a legislative or official deliberative body meets.

9. House, the body itself, especially of a bicameral legislature.

   the House of Representatives.

10. a quorum of such a body.

11. (often initial capital letter) a commercial establishment; business firm.

    the House of Rothschild; a publishing house.

12. a gambling casino.

13. the management of a commercial establishment or of a gambling casino.

    rules of the house.

14. an advisory or deliberative group, especially in church or college affairs.

15. a college in an English-type university.

16. a residential hall in a college or school; dormitory.

17. the members or residents of any such residential hall.

18. Informal. a brothel; whorehouse.

19. house music.

20. British. a variety of lotto or bingo played with paper and pencil, especially by soldiers as a gambling game.

21. Also called parish.  Curling. the area enclosed by a circle 12 or 14 feet (3.7 or 4.2 meters) in diameter at each end of the rink, having the tee in the center.

22. Nautical. any enclosed shelter above the weather deck of a vessel.

    bridge house; deck house.

23. Astrology. one of the 12 divisions of the celestial sphere, numbered counterclockwise from the point of the eastern horizon.

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verb (used with object)

• houses,
  present (3rd person singular)
• housed,
  past participle,  past
• housing
  present participle

1. to put or receive into a house, dwelling, or living quarters.

   More than 200 students were housed in the dormitory.

2. to give shelter to; harbor; lodge.

   to house flood victims in schools.

3. to provide with a place to work, study, or the like.

   This building houses our executive staff.

4. to provide storage space for; be a receptacle for or repository of.

   The library houses 600,000 books.

5. to remove from exposure; put in a safe place.

6. Nautical.

   1. to stow securely.

   2. to lower (an upper mast) and make secure, as alongside the lower mast.

   3. to heave (an anchor) home.

7. Carpentry.

   1. to fit the end or edge of (a board or the like) into a notch, hole, or groove.

   2. to form (a joint) between two pieces of wood by fitting the end or edge of one into a dado of the other.

verb (used without object)

• houses,
  present (3rd person singular)
• housed,
  past participle,  past
• housing
  present participle

1. to take shelter; dwell.

adjective

1. of, relating to, or noting a house.

2. for or suitable for a house.

   house paint.

3. served by a restaurant as its customary brand.

   the house wine.

4. of or being a product made by or for a specific retailer and often sold under the store's own label.

   You'll save money on the radio if you buy the house brand.

idioms

1. clean house. clean.

2. on the house, as a gift from the management; free.

   Tonight the drinks are on the house.

3. put / set one's house in order,

   1. to settle one's affairs.

   2. to improve one's behavior or correct one's faults.

      It is easy to criticize others, but it would be better to put one's own house in order first.

4. keep house, to maintain a home; manage a household.

5. dress the house,

   1. to fill a theater with many people admitted on free passes; paper the house.

   2. to arrange or space the seating of patrons in such a way as to make an audience appear larger or a theater or nightclub more crowded than it actually is.

6. bring down the house, to call forth vigorous applause from an audience; be highly successful.

   The children's performances brought down the house.

7. like a house on fire / afire, very quickly; with energy or enthusiasm.

   The new product took off like a house on fire.

House ² American  

[hous] / haʊs /

noun

1. Edward Mandell Colonel House, 1858–1938, U.S. diplomat.

2. Son Eddie James House, Jr., 1902–88, U.S. blues singer and guitarist.

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house ¹ British  

noun

1. 1. a building used as a home; dwelling

   2. ( as modifier )

      house dog

2. the people present in a house, esp its usual occupants

3. 1. a building used for some specific purpose

   2. ( in combination )

      a schoolhouse

4. (often capital) a family line including ancestors and relatives, esp a noble one

   the House of York

5. 1. a commercial company; firm

      a publishing house

   2. ( as modifier )

      house style

      a house journal

6. an official deliberative or legislative body, such as one chamber of a bicameral legislature

7. a quorum in such a body (esp in the phrase make a house )

8. a dwelling for a religious community

9. astrology any of the 12 divisions of the zodiac See also planet

10. 1. any of several divisions, esp residential, of a large school

    2. ( as modifier )

       house spirit

11. 1. a hotel, restaurant, bar, inn, club, etc, or the management of such an establishment

    2. ( as modifier )

       house rules

    3. ( in combination )

       steakhouse

12. (modifier) (of wine) sold unnamed by a restaurant, at a lower price than wines specified on the wine list

    the house red

13. the audience in a theatre or cinema

14. an informal word for brothel

15. a hall in which an official deliberative or legislative body meets

16. See full house

17. curling the 12-foot target circle around the tee

18. nautical any structure or shelter on the weather deck of a vessel

19. theatre to win great applause

20. an emphatic form of home

21. to be always ready to provide hospitality

22. informal very well, quickly, or intensely

23. (usually of drinks) paid for by the management of the hotel, bar, etc

24. to settle or organize one's affairs

25. very secure

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verb

1. (tr) to provide with or serve as accommodation

2. to give or receive shelter or lodging

3. (tr) to contain or cover, esp in order to protect

4. (tr) to fit (a piece of wood) into a mortise, joint, etc

5. (tr) nautical

   1. to secure or stow

   2. to secure (a topmast)

   3. to secure and stow (an anchor)

House ² British  

/ haʊs /

noun

1. See House of Commons

2. informal the Stock Exchange

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house More Idioms  

More idioms and phrases containing house

• boardinghouse reach
• bring down the house
• clean house
• eat someone out of house and home
• get on (like a house afire)
• keep house
• on the house
• open house
• people who live in glass houses
• put one's house in order
• safe as houses

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Synonym Usage

House, dwelling, residence, home are terms applied to a place to live in. Dwelling is now chiefly poetic, or used in legal or technical contexts, as in a lease or in the phrase multiple dwelling. Residence is characteristic of formal usage and often implies size and elegance of structure and surroundings: the private residence of the king. These two terms and house have always had reference to the structure to be lived in. Home has recently taken on this meaning and become practically equivalent to house, the new meaning tending to crowd out the older connotations of family ties and domestic comfort. See also hotel.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• subhouse
  noun
• houseless
  adjective
• well-housed
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• houses
  plural

Participles

• housing
  present
• housed
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• house
  simple
• houses
  simple
• have housed
  perfect
• has housed
  perfect
• am housing
  progressive
• are housing
  progressive
• is housing
  progressive
• have been housing
  perfect progressive
• has been housing
  perfect progressive

Past

• housed
  simple
• had housed
  perfect
• was housing
  progressive
• were housing
  progressive
• had been housing
  perfect progressive

Future

• will house
  simple
• will have housed
  perfect
• will be housing
  progressive
• will have been housing
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of house

First recorded before 900; Middle English noun h(o)us, hous(s)e, Old English hūs; cognate with Dutch huis, Low German huus, Old Norse hūs, German Haus, Gothic -hūs (in gudhūs “temple”); the verb is derivative of the noun

Explanation

A house is a building where you might live alone or it could be a multi-family house that you share with other families. If you live in an apartment building, that's "home," but it's not a house. You can also use house to refer to groups of people. The House of Tudor is an English royal family. Governing bodies can be houses: the Houses of Parliament, in Britain, or the House of Representatives, in the US. In a theater, the house is the audience. When house is a verb, meaning to provide a house for, as in “where are you going to house all your guests?” — it’s pronounced with a -z-, rather than an -s-.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

house House houses housed housing

The court heard in April that the company had taken millions of dollars in pre-sale funding from potential house buyers that were not used for construction.

From BBC ● Aug. 20, 2026

In my mind, a fire extinguisher often gets put into the same “essentials” bucket as a plunger for your house: You should probably buy one before you need it.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 20, 2026

Lindell lost by 11 points to the Minnesota house speaker, Lisa Demuth, but did not graciously concede.

From Salon ● Aug. 20, 2026

“You know, buying a house, or family formation—student loans are eating up a significant proportion of their posttax income,” he said.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 19, 2026

The sky was turning dark, and the Legendary house band had come on.

From "Legendary Frybread Drive-In" by Cynthia Leitich Smith

After all, Donald Trump had brought his son-in-law into the White House and given him a broad portfolio which, as the husband of the president’s favorite daughter, made him very powerful.

From Salon ● Aug. 20, 2026

The BBC has asked the White House and US treasury department for comment.

From BBC ● Aug. 20, 2026

Rep. Cory Mills, whom Trump endorsed even though the House Ethics Committee is investigating him for alleged sexual misconduct, lost his primary.

From Slate ● Aug. 19, 2026

Last October the White House invited nine institutions to sign what it called the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 19, 2026

It was pointed at a yellow Packard parked in front of the Lugo House.

From "The Red Car to Hollywood" by Jennie Liu

The US leader listed several activities that he said needed to stop immediately: "oil smuggling, swap lines, cash transfers, exchange houses, ship registries, front companies".

From Barron's ● Aug. 20, 2026

One provision of the bill removes a requirement that manufactured homes come with the permanent steel frame used for transporting the houses.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 19, 2026

“During the offseason, I was doing open houses, I brought my Super Bowl ring to the open houses,” he said on the episode.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 19, 2026

She said "tackling the most visible form of homelessness is a strong start" but urged the prime minister to act on his promise to build more council houses to help people living in temporary accommodation.

From BBC ● Aug. 18, 2026

I drew up a map of Sassafras Springs and marked off all the farms and houses I knew of.

From "The Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs" by Betty G. Birney

He is aided by assistant prop master Robyn Monkarsh, who helps oversee the box backstage in which they are housed.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 19, 2026

These data centers are housed in huge new buildings, stuffed with massive heat-generating computers and cooled by big banks of air conditioning.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 15, 2026

The lab, housed in an unmarked office in a D.C. suburb, had access to the government’s most sensitive databases, from suspicious activity reports to arrest records.

From Salon ● Aug. 15, 2026

Sections that housed the infrastructure for steam have been reworked or simply don’t exist.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026

She bought him a smallish, unweighted wooden set that was housed in a sliding, unvarnished wooden box.

From "Endgame" by Frank Brady

In 2014, he won a Pulitzer Prize in Local Reporting for an investigation into abusive landlords and squalid conditions in publicly subsidized housing for Tampa’s homeless.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 20, 2026

The latest tender covers more than 1,200 housing units, according to Israeli NGO Peace Now.

From Barron's ● Aug. 20, 2026

This rate of growth dramatically outpaces normal household expenses, medical care, and even housing over the same multidecade period, it says.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 20, 2026

The founder of Evergrande, the property giant at the centre of China's housing market slump, has been sentenced to life in prison and had all of his personal property confiscated.

From BBC ● Aug. 20, 2026

As the teachers passed the George Washington Carver houses, a housing project for poor black families, people came out of their homes to encourage them.

From "Because They Marched" by Russell Freedman

Related Words

• apartment
• box
• building
• condo
• condominium
• dwelling
• home
• mansion
• residence
• shack