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PlainSpell

household

/ˈhaʊshoʊld/noun, adjective

household is spelled H-O-U-S-E-H-O-L-D: 9 letters and 2 syllables. It appears 30 times per million words in written English, the 3,161st most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, household means “All the persons who live in a given house or other home; a family including attendants, servants etc.; a domestic or family establishment” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of household is households.

How many letters and syllables are in household?

Letters9: H-O-U-S-E-H-O-L-D
Syllables2 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing30 times per million words; the 3,161st most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How common is household?

Household appears 30 times per million words in written English, the 3,161st most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce household?

  • UK /ˈhaʊshəʊld/
  • US /ˈhaʊshoʊld/
  • /ˈhaʊshəʊld/

Household has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-household.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of household

  • households plural

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does household mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

  1. 1

    All the persons who live in a given house or other home; a family including attendants, servants etc.; a domestic or family establishment.

  2. 2

    Entirety of work and management required to sustain the household.

  3. 3

    Legal or culturally determined unit of people living together.

  4. 4

    obsoleteA line of ancestry; a race or house.

adjective

  1. 1

    Belonging to the same house and family.

  2. 2

    Found in or having its origin in a home.

  3. 3

    Widely known to the public; familiar.

    a household word; a household name

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you abbreviate household?

Wiktionary records one abbreviation of household: HH.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Household in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchfoyer, maisonnée (those living in the same residence), ménage (entirety of work and management required to…), domestique (found in or having its origin in a home)
Spanishagregado familiar, núcleo familiar, unidad doméstica, unidad cívica (those living in the same residence), casero, hogareño (belonging to same house and family)
GermanHaushalt (entirety of work and management required to…)
Portuguesedomiciliar (found in or having its origin in a home), familiar (belonging to same house and family)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does household come from?

From Middle English houshold. By surface analysis, house + hold.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after household