Homemade
adjectiveMade at home rather than bought ready-made or produced commercially.
How to spell homemade
8 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce homemade
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does homemade mean?
- adjectiveMade at home rather than bought ready-made or produced commercially.
Homemade in a sentence
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She packed a slice of homemade bread for lunch.
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The stall sold homemade jam and chutney every weekend.
Where does homemade come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
This is a transparent English compound, joining the native Old English word ham (meaning a dwelling or village, the source of modern 'home') with 'made', the past participle of the verb 'make', which itself descends from Old English macian, 'to bring into being'. The pairing simply describes something fashioned at home rather than bought from a shop or produced in a factory. It is a relatively modern formation, gaining currency from the 1600s onward as a way to mark food, cloth, and goods crafted by hand in the household. Both halves are firmly Germanic in origin, with close cousins in Dutch huis and gemaakt and German Haus and gemacht. The spelling trap is small but real: because the two words have fused into one solid form, writers sometimes hesitate over whether to write it as one word, two words, or with a hyphen, and the doubled 'm' where 'home' meets 'made' can be misread.
How the word is built
- home (a dwelling)
- made (past participle of make)
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