Meaning & use
house
Last updated
Meanings
nouncountable
A building, usually for one family or household, in which people live.
Grammar: Counted noun: a house, two houses; pronounced with a s sound /haʊs/.
Patterns
- a house on something
- at someone's house
They bought a small house near the river.
I'll come over to your house after school.
Our house has three bedrooms and a garden.
verbtransitive
To provide a place to live, be kept or work for people or things.
Grammar: Takes an object and is pronounced /haʊz/ with a z sound.
Patterns
- house someone
- house something in something
The new building will house two hundred students.
The museum houses a rare collection of maps.
The council plans to house homeless families in the empty flats.
nouncountablebusiness
A group or institution, such as a business, theatre audience or part of a parliament.
Grammar: Used in set expressions: a publishing house, the House of Representatives.
Patterns
- a house of something
The publishing house released her novel in May.
The House voted on the bill late at night.
The theater was a full house on opening night.
noununcountablemusic
A type of electronic dance music with a steady four-beat rhythm.
Grammar: Often 'house music'.
Patterns
- house music
The club plays house until dawn.
He started making house tracks on his laptop.
House music began in Chicago in the 1980s.
Word forms
| plural | houses |
|---|---|
| third person singular | houses |
| past tense | housed |
| past participle | housed |
| -ing form | housing |
Common combinations
- buy a house
- They hope to buy a house next year.
- detached house
- They live in a detached house with a large garden.
- on the house
- The meal was on the house after the long wait.
- house rules
- Please read the house rules before you stay.
- house party
- We went to a house party on Saturday.
- full house
- The concert played to a full house.
Synonyms and how they differ
- home
- Home is the place where you live and feel you belong, whereas house is just the building.
- residence
- Residence is formal or legal and can describe any dwelling, but house is the everyday word.
- dwelling
- Dwelling is formal or technical and includes flats or huts, while house is specifically a building.
- accommodate
- Accommodate as a verb means to provide space or room for, and is more formal than house.
Word family
- household noun
- all the people living in one home
- housing noun
- homes provided for people
- houseful noun
- as many as fill a house
- housebound adjective
- unable to leave the house
- homeless adjective
- having no home
Commonly confused: house or home? house or hose?
house vs home
Home is where you live and belong, while a house is a physical building; a house becomes a home only when you live in it.
house vs hose
A hose is a flexible tube for water, not a building.
Practice
The old factory will ___ forty small businesses after the renovation.
Choose one answer.
As a verb, house means to provide space for people or things. Home, dwell and residence are not used as transitive verbs in this way.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “house”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.