house

Alternative forms

• howse (obsolete)

Pronunciation

• (noun):
  • enPR: hous, IPA^(key): /haʊs/
  • (Canada) IPA^(key): /hʌʊs/

  • Audio (US)

    (file)

  • Audio (UK)

    (file)

• (verb):
  • enPR: houz, IPA^(key): /haʊz/

  • Audio (US)

    (file)

• Rhymes: -aʊs, -aʊz
• Homophone: how's (verb)

Noun

The house of a Japanese rice farmer

house (countable and uncountable, plural houses or (dialectal) housen or (chiefly humorous) hice)

1. A structure built or serving as an abode of human beings. [from 9^thc.]

   This is my house and my family's ancestral home.

   • 1909, Archibald Marshall [pseudonym; Arthur Hammond Marshall], chapter III, in The Squire’s Daughter, London: Methuen, OCLC 12026604; republished New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1919, OCLC 491297620:

     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, […].

   • 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 1, in Mr. Pratt's Patients:

     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.

2. The people who live in a house; a household. [from 9^thc.]
   • Bible, Acts x.2:

     one that feared God with all his house

3. A building used for something other than a residence (typically with qualifying word). [from 10^thc.]

   The former carriage house had been made over into a guest house.

   On arriving at the zoo, we immediately headed for the monkey house.

4. A place of business; a company or organisation, especially a printing press, a publishing company, or a couturier. [from 10^thc.]

   A small publishing house would have a contract with an independent fulfillment house.

5. A place of public accommodation or entertainment, especially a public house, an inn, a restaurant, a theatre, or a casino; or the management thereof.[from 10^thc.]

   One more, sir, then I'll have to stop serving you – rules of the house, I'm afraid.

   The house always wins.

6. The audience for a live theatrical or similar performance. [from 10^thc.]

   After her swan-song, there wasn't a dry eye in the house.

   • 1905, Baroness Emmuska Orczy, chapter 2, in The Affair at the Novelty Theatre‎:

     Miss Phyllis Morgan, as the hapless heroine dressed in the shabbiest of clothes, appears in the midst of a gay and giddy throng; she apostrophises all and sundry there, including the villain, and has a magnificent scene which always brings down the house, and nightly adds to her histrionic laurels.

   • 2007 November 6, “When Will the Slump End?”, in Newsweek:

     Those homeowners who bought too much house, or borrowed against inflated values are now going to be liable for their own poor decisions.

7. (politics) A building where a deliberative assembly meets; whence the assembly itself, particularly a component of a legislature. [from 10^thc.]

   The petition was so ridiculous that the house rejected it after minimal debate.

8. A dynasty; a family with its ancestors and descendants, especially a royal or noble one. [from 10^thc.]

   A curse lay upon the House of Atreus.

9. (figuratively) a place of rest or repose. [from 9^thc.]
   • 1598, Ben Jonson, Every Man in His Humour

     Like a pestilence, it doth infect / The houses of the brain.

   • 1815, Walter Scott, The Lord of the Isles

     Such hate was his, when his last breath / Renounced the peaceful house of death  […].

10. A grouping of schoolchildren for the purposes of competition in sports and other activities. [from 19^thc.]

    I was a member of Spenser house when I was at school.

11. An animal's shelter or den, or the shell of an animal such as a snail, used for protection. [from 10^thc.]
12. (astrology) One of the twelve divisions of an astrological chart. [from 14^thc.]
    • 1971, Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Folio Society 2012, p.313:

      Since there was a limited number of planets, houses and signs of the zodiac, the astrologers tended to reduce human potentialities to a set of fixed types and to postulate only a limited number of possible variations.

13. (cartomancy) The fourth Lenormand card.
14. (chess, now rare) A square on a chessboard, regarded as the proper place of a piece. [from 16^thc.]
15. (curling) The four concentric circles where points are scored on the ice. [from 19^thc.]
16. Lotto; bingo. [from 20^thc.]
17. (uncountable) A children's game in which the players pretend to be members of a household.

    As the babysitter, Emma always acted as the mother whenever the kids demanded to play house.

18. (US, dialect) A small stand of trees in a swamp.

Verb

house (third-person singular simple present houses, present participle housing, simple past and past participle housed)

1. (transitive) To keep within a structure or container.

   The car is housed in the garage.

   • Evelyn

     House your choicest carnations, or rather set them under a penthouse.

2. (transitive) To admit to residence; to harbor/harbour.
   • Sir Philip Sidney

     Palladius wished him to house all the Helots.

3. To take shelter or lodging; to abide; to lodge.
   • Shakespeare

     You shall not house with me.

4. (transitive, astrology) To dwell within one of the twelve astrological houses.
   • Dryden

     Where Saturn houses.

5. (transitive) To contain or cover mechanical parts.
6. (obsolete) To drive to a shelter.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Shakespeare to this entry?)

7. (obsolete) To deposit and cover, as in the grave.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Sandys to this entry?)

8. (nautical) To stow in a safe place; to take down and make safe.

   to house the upper spars

Noun

house (uncountable)

1. (music) House music.
   • 1998, Colin Larkin, The Virgin Encyclopedia of Dance Music, London: Virgin Books, →ISBN, page 73:

     […] their music is influenced as much by Roxy Music and the Ramones as it is by house and techno pioneers.

   • 2001 March, Philip Sherburne, “Exos, Strength [album review]”, in CMJ New Music Monthly, number 91, Great Neck, N.Y.: College Media, ISSN 1074-6978, page 66:

     And while hard, minimal techno has become increasingly influenced by house and Oval-esque "glitch" stylistics, Exos keeps it old school on Strength, infusing his own style with the force of hard techno purists Surgeon and Oliver Ho.

   • 2006, Mark Jonathan Butler, Unlocking the Groove: Rhythm, Meter, and Musical Design in Electronic Dance Music, Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, →ISBN, page 45:

     The first genre of American dance music to become popular in the United Kingdom was Chicago house. Although music from Detroit was soon imported as well, it was often treated as subcategory of house, and for many years the most common English term for electronic dance music in general was "house" or "acid house". […] During the formative years of techno and house, the musicians involved interacted in various ways.

Declension

Declension

Synonyms

• house music

Declension

Derived terms

• house-parti
• house-zene

Synonyms

• housemusikk

Declension

Synonyms

• música house

Declension

Synonyms

• housemusik, house-musik