Meaning & use
house share
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Meanings
nouncountableBritish
An arrangement in which several people who are not a family rent one house or flat, each with their own bedroom.
Grammar: Countable: you can say 'a house share' or 'two house shares'. Often used with 'in': 'I live in a house share.'
Patterns
- live in a house share
- a house share with someone
- move into a house share
After university she moved into a house share in the city because rent for a flat alone was too high.
The house share has four bedrooms, a shared kitchen and a small garden.
Living in a house share can be cheap, but you have to get on with the other tenants.
verbintransitiveBritishinformal
To live in a rented house with other people who are not your family, sharing the common rooms.
Grammar: No object; usually followed by 'with someone': 'I house-share with two nurses.'
Patterns
- house-share with someone
- house-share in a city
He house-shares with three friends to keep his costs down.
They have been house-sharing in London for five years.
Word forms
| plural | house shares |
|---|---|
| third person singular | house-shares |
| past tense | house-shared |
| past participle | house-shared |
| -ing form | house-sharing |
Common combinations
- in a house share
- She lives in a house share near the station.
- a house share with students
- It's a house share with students from the local college.
- look for a house share
- I'm looking for a house share closer to work.
- house-share with friends
- They decided to house-share with friends to save money.
Synonyms and how they differ
- flatshare
- Very similar, but usually refers to sharing a flat rather than a whole house.
- shared house
- A more neutral phrase that describes the building itself rather than the rental arrangement.
- co-living
- A modern, often commercial arrangement with shared facilities; more formal and less common in everyday talk.
Word family
- house-sharer noun
- A person who lives in a house share.
- house-sharing noun
- The activity or practice of living in a house share.
Commonly confused: house share or houseshare?
house share vs houseshare
Sometimes written as one word, but the standard spelling is two words: 'house share'. The hyphen is used in the verb form 'house-share'.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'house share' correctly?
Choose one answer.
'Live in a house share' is the natural pattern. Option An is wrong because 'house share' as a verb is intransitive and takes 'with', not a direct object. Option C uses the wrong preposition, and option D uses the noun where a verb form is needed.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “house share”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.