Meaning & use
townhome
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Meaning
nouncountableAmerican
A house that shares one or more walls with neighboring homes and is usually part of a row, often on two or three floors.
Grammar: Often owned, not rented, and sometimes in a managed community: a townhome in the suburbs.
Patterns
- buy a townhome
- a townhome in something
They bought a townhome near the lake because it needed less upkeep than a house.
Each townhome in the row has a small garden at the back.
The new townhome community has a pool and a playground.
Word forms
| plural | townhomes |
|---|
Common combinations
- luxury townhome
- The developer is building luxury townhomes downtown.
- buy a townhome
- Many first-time buyers choose to buy a townhome.
- townhome community
- The townhome community shares a clubhouse.
- end-unit townhome
- An end-unit townhome has more windows and light.
- two-story townhome
- We rented a two-story townhome near the school.
Synonyms and how they differ
- townhouse
- Townhouse is the older and more widely understood term, while townhome is a marketing-friendly variant used mostly in the US.
- terraced house
- Terraced house is the usual British phrase for a home in a connected row, with no suggestion of a managed community.
- row house
- Row house is used in some American cities such as Philadelphia and describes older homes joined in a row.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: townhome or condo?
townhome vs condo
A condo is an apartment owned by one person within a shared building, while a townhome has its own front door and usually its own stairs and ground level.
Practice
What is a defining feature of a townhome?
Choose one answer.
A townhome is part of a connected row of houses. A detached home stands alone, and the other options do not describe houses.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “townhome”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.