housekeeping
Americannoun
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the maintenance of a house or domestic establishment.
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the management of household affairs.
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the management, care, and servicing of property and equipment of an industrial or commercial building or organization.
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the ongoing routine, procedures, operations, and management of a commercial enterprise, government, organization, or the like.
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Computers. system tasks, as initialization and managing peripheral devices, that must be done to permit a computer program to execute properly but that do not directly contribute to program output.
noun
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the running of a household
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money allocated for the running of a household
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organization and tidiness in general, as of an office, shop, etc
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the general maintenance of a computer storage system, including removal of obsolete files, documentation, security copying, etc
Etymology
Origin of housekeeping
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.
A housekeeping note: This season was produced before the end of the most recent Supreme Court term.
From Slate ● Aug. 22, 2026
That sent long-term rates plunging but they rebounded on Thursday, with Mark Malek, of Muriel Siebert & Co, calling it "a housekeeping move destined to be short-term, at best".
From Barron's ● Aug. 21, 2026
An engineering student at London University who previously worked as a housekeeping assistant at a hospital in Birmingham.
From BBC ● Jul. 10, 2026
She passed as a Mexican woman to get a housekeeping job in the ranch where her mother died; later in life she found work by pretending to be a war widow.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 11, 2026
Lord knows he needed somebody, what with Miss Love gone to housekeeping, Uncle Camp gone to Hell, and spring just around the corner.
From "Cold Sassy Tree" by Olive Ann Burns
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.
