Meaning & use
house in order
Last updated
Meaning
phraseidiomfigurative
Used in put or get your house in order, meaning to sort out your affairs, problems or organization so that everything works properly.
Grammar: Needs a possessive and a verb like put or get: the board must put its house in order.
Patterns
- put your house in order
- get your house in order
- keep your house in order
Before the audit, the charity had to put its house in order.
You should get your house in order before asking for a loan.
The government promised to set its house in order.
Common combinations
- put your house in order
- It is time to put your house in order and pay the old bills.
- get our house in order
- We need to get our house in order before the merger.
- set its house in order
- The club set its house in order after the scandal.
- financial house in order
- She keeps her financial house in order.
Synonyms and how they differ
- sort yourself out
- Sort yourself out is more informal and personal, while house in order suggests organizations and affairs.
- clean up your act
- Clean up your act focuses on correcting bad behavior, but house in order focuses on tidying arrangements.
- get your affairs in order
- This version stresses legal and financial paperwork, often before death or travel.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: house in order or in house?
house in order vs in house
In-house means done within a company, which is unrelated.
Practice
Before inviting investors, the startup had to put its ____ in order.
Choose one answer.
The idiom is put your house in order. The other nouns are possible in other phrases but break the fixed idiom.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “house in order”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.