town house

American  

Or townhouse

noun

• town houses
  plural

1. a house in the city, especially as distinguished from a house in the country owned by the same person.

2. a luxurious house in a large city, occupied entirely by one family.

3. one of a row of houses joined by common sidewalls.

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town house British  

noun

1. a terraced house in an urban area, esp a fashionable one, often having the main living room on the first floor with an integral garage on the ground floor

2. a person's town residence as distinct from his country residence

3. another name (now chiefly Scot) for town hall

4. Also called: row house, terraced house. a house that is part of a terrace

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• town houses
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of town house

First recorded in 1520–30

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

town house

The 600 attendees who had crammed themselves into a D.C. town house that evening were typical Washington creatures: political staffers, journalists, do-gooder nonprofit types.

From Slate ● Dec. 23, 2025

Erin Kyle, her teenage daughter and her daughter’s best friend, who had spent the night at their town house in the Palisades Highlands, were speeding down the mountain, smoke billowing around them.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 25, 2025

The town house is now under contract, and they’ve moved into a larger home in Ballard.

From Seattle Times ● Mar. 8, 2024

Now, it wasn’t totally a surprise: My wife and I have been renting in this neighborhood for more than eight years, two in our town house.

From Slate ● Jan. 20, 2024

I grin and look out the window—but my smile wavers as I regard my parents’ navy-bricked town house.

From "Kwame Crashes the Underworld" by Craig Kofi Farmer

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Related Words

• city center
• courthouse

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