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house

Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.

Letters

5 characters

Language

English

word origin

Source

Wiktionary

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Detailed reference entry for the English word "house", 5-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "house" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "house" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.

house is aEnglishnoun. It means: A structure built or serving as an abode of human beings. Pronounced /haʊs/. It ranks #186 in English word frequency. Often confused with hue and hse.

Key facts for house
PropertyValue
Headwordhouse
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
IPA/haʊs/
Letters5
Frequency rank#186
Misspellings tracked6
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of house in English word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English entry for house is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /haʊs/. Corpus data places it at rank #186 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 25 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for house, with forms such as "hhouse", "hosue", and "houes". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "hue", "hse", "Hus", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *(s)kewH-der.? Proto-Germanic *hūsą Proto-West Germanic *hūs Old English hūs Middle English hous English house From Middle English hous, hus, from Old English hūs (“dwelling, shelter, house”), from Proto-West Germanic *hūs… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is house, spelled H-O-U-S-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    A structure built or serving as an abode of human beings.
  2. 2
    A structure built or serving as an abode of human beings.
  3. 3
    A container; a thing which houses another.
  4. 4
    Size and quality of residential accommodations; housing.
  5. 5
    A building intended to contain a single household, as opposed to an apartment or condominium or building containing these.
  6. 6
    The people who live in a house; a household.
  7. 7
    A building used for something other than a residence (typically with qualifying word).
  8. 8
    A building used for something other than a residence (typically with qualifying word).
  9. 9
    A building used for something other than a residence (typically with qualifying word).
  10. 10
    A building used for something other than a residence (typically with qualifying word).
  11. 11
    The audience for a live theatrical or similar performance.
  12. 12
    A building where a deliberative assembly meets; whence the assembly itself, particularly a component of a legislature.
  13. 13
    A dynasty; a family with its ancestors and descendants, especially a royal or noble one.
  14. 14
    A place of rest or repose.
  15. 15
    A grouping of schoolchildren for the purposes of competition in sports and other activities.
  16. 16
    An animal's shelter or den, or the shell of an animal such as a snail, used for protection.
  17. 17
    One of the twelve divisions of an astrological chart.
  18. 18
    The fourth Lenormand card.
  19. 19
    A square on a chessboard, regarded as the proper place of a piece.
  20. 20
    The four concentric circles where points are scored on the ice.
  21. 21
    Lotto; bingo.
  22. 22
    A children's game in which the players pretend to be members of a household.
  23. 23
    A small stand of trees in a swamp.
  24. 24
    A set of cells in a sudoku puzzle which must contain each digit exactly once, such as a row, column, or 3×3 box.
  25. 25
    The end zone.

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *(s)kewH-der.? Proto-Germanic *hūsą Proto-West Germanic *hūs Old English hūs Middle English hous English house From Middle English hous, hus, from Old English hūs (“dwelling, shelter, house”), from Proto-West Germanic *hūs, from Proto-Germanic *hūsą (“house”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kews-, from *(s)kewH- (“to cover, hide”). More at hose. Eclipsed non-native Middle English mees, meson, measoun (“house”), borrowed from Anglo-Norman mes, mies, meis, maisun (“house”). The uncommon plural form housen is from Middle English husen, housen. (The Old English nominative plural was simply hūs.) Cognates Cognate with Scots hoose, oos (“house”), Yola heouse, houze, howze (“house”), North Frisian hüs (“house”), Saterland Frisian Huus, Húus (“house”), West Frisian hûs (“house”), Alemannic German hous, hus, husch, hüs, hüüsch (“house”), Bavarian, Cimbrian, Mòcheno haus (“house”), Central Franconian Haus, Hous, Huus (“home”), Dutch huis (“house”), Dutch Low Saxon hoes, huus (“house”), German Haus, Hauß (“house”), German Low German Huus (“house”), Limburgish hoes, Huus (“house”), Luxembourgish Haus (“house”), Vilamovian haojs, haus, hoüz (“house”), Yiddish הויז (hoyz, “house”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk hus (“house”), Elfdalian aus (“house”), Faroese, Icelandic hús (“house”), Swedish hus, hws (“house”), Crimean Gothic hus (“house”); also Cornish kudha (“to conceal, hide”), Welsh cuddio (“to hide”), Latin cutis (“human skin; hide, leather”), Ancient Greek κεύθω (keúthō, “to cover, hide”), Tocharian A kāc (“hide, skin”), Sanskrit स्कुनाति (skunāti, “to cover”).

Synonyms

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: hhouse,hosue,houes,housse,huose,ohuse

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for house

Misspelling Variants of "house"

hhouse6hosue5houes5housse6huose5ohuse5
Misspelling Variants of "house"

Frequency rank: #186 in English

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "house"?
"house" is spelled H-O-U-S-E. The IPA pronunciation is /haʊs/.
What does "house" mean?
As a noun, "house" means: A structure built or serving as an abode of human beings.
What words are commonly confused with "house"?
"house" is commonly confused with "hue", "hse", "Hus". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "house"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "house" is /haʊs/. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What is the origin of the word "house"?
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *(s)kewH-der.? Proto-Germanic *hūsą Proto-West Germanic *hūs Old English hūs Middle English hous English house From Middle English hous, hus, from Old English hūs (“dwelling, shelter, house”), from Proto-West Ger... See the full etymology section above for more details.
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Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Nearby English words

Other entries that begin with the letter H in our English index:

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Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.