Clubhouse

How to spell clubhouse

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce clubhouse

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does clubhouse mean?

1. nounA building used by the members of a club, often beside a golf course or sports ground.

Clubhouse in a sentence

• The golfers gathered in the clubhouse after their round.

• The tennis clubhouse has a small bar and changing rooms.

Where does clubhouse come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a transparent compound of two everyday words, 'club' and 'house', and its spelling rewards anyone who simply joins the two parts together without dropping a letter. The first element, 'club', came into English from Old Norse klubba, which originally meant a heavy stick or cudgel; from the idea of a knotted mass it developed the sense of a group of people massed or banded together, a meaning recorded from the 1600s. The second element, 'house', is a thoroughly native word descended from Old English hus, the ordinary term for a dwelling or building, with cousins right across the Germanic languages such as Dutch huis and German Haus. The two words were stitched together in the 1800s to name the building where a social, sporting, or athletic club meets. Because both halves are familiar on their own, the only real spelling care is remembering it is one solid word and that the silent 'e' at the end of 'house' survives intact.

How the word is built

• club (a society or association, from Old Norse klubba)
• house (a building, from Old English hus)