house
/haʊ̯s/
Word Rarity
Common
Frequency: 5.71 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A building intended to contain a single household, as opposed to an apartment or condominium or building containing these.
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "This is my house and my family's ancestral home."
- "The big houses, and there are a good many of them, lie for the most part in what may be called by courtesy the valleys. You catch a glimpse of them sometimes at a little distance from the [railway] line, which seems to have shown some ingenuity in avoiding them,[…]."
- "Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path […]. It twisted and turned,[…]and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn. And, back of the lawn, was a big, old-fashioned house, with piazzas stretching in front of it, and all blazing with lights. 'Twas the house I'd seen the roof of from the beach."
- "The purposes of food are to promote growth, to supply force and heat, and to furnish material to repair the waste which is constantly taking place in the body. Every breath, every thought, every motion, wears out some portion of the delicate and wonderful house in which we live."
- "Those homeowners who bought too much house, or borrowed against inflated values are now going to be liable for their own poor decisions."
- "one that feared God with all his house"
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *(s)kewH-der.? Proto-Germanic *hūsą Proto-West Germanic *hūs Old English hūs Middle English hous English house From Middle English hous, hus, from Old English hūs (“dwelling, shelter, house”), from Proto-West Germanic *hūs, from Proto-Germanic *hūsą (“house”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kews-, from *(s)kewH- (“to cover, hide”). More at hose. Eclipsed non-native Middle English mees, meson, measoun (“house”), borrowed from Anglo-Norman mes, mies, meis, maisun (“house”). The uncommon plural form housen is from Middle English husen, housen. (The Old English nominative plural was simply hūs.) Cognates Cognate with Scots hoose, oos (“house”), Yola heouse, houze, howze (“house”), North Frisian hüs (“house”), Saterland Frisian Huus, Húus (“house”), West Frisian hûs (“house”), Alemannic German hous, hus, husch, hüs, hüüsch (“house”), Bavarian, Cimbrian, Mòcheno haus (“house”), Central Franconian Haus, Hous, Huus (“home”), Dutch huis (“house”), Dutch Low Saxon hoes, huus (“house”), German Haus, Hauß (“house”), German Low German Huus (“house”), Limburgish hoes, Huus (“house”), Luxembourgish Haus (“house”), Vilamovian haojs, haus, hoüz (“house”), Yiddish הויז (hoyz, “house”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish hus (“house”), Elfdalian aus (“house”), Faroese and Icelandic hús (“house”), Crimean Gothic hus (“house”); also Cornish kudha (“to conceal, hide”), Welsh cuddio (“to hide”), Latin cutis (“human skin; hide, leather”), Ancient Greek κεύθω (keúthō, “to cover, hide”), Tocharian A kāc (“hide, skin”), Sanskrit स्कुनाति (skunāti, “to cover”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /haʊ̯s/
- British English: /haʊ̯s/
Usage
Subject
Wiktionary places this term in Music.