Household

How to spell household

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce household

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does household mean?

1. nounAll the people who live together in one home, considered as a single domestic unit.
2. adjectiveRelating to a home or family, or so familiar that almost everyone knows it.

Household in a sentence

• noun

  Each household on the street received a recycling calendar in the post.

• adjective

  The brand became a household name after the advertising campaign.

• noun

  The survey asked how many people lived in the household.

• adjective

  They keep a list of routine household chores on the fridge.

Where does household come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Household is a transparent compound of two very old English words. The first element, house, descends from the Old English hus, a Germanic word for a dwelling that has cousins across the Germanic languages, including the German Haus and the Dutch huis. The second element comes from hold, ultimately the Old English healdan, meaning to keep, guard, or occupy; in early use a 'hold' could mean the act or place of keeping something. By the late 1300s the two were joined to name the people who keep house together, that is, all those living under one roof as a domestic unit. The spelling is reassuringly regular for a native word: there are no silent traps beyond remembering that it is a single solid compound, not 'house hold' written as two pieces.

How the word is built

• house (dwelling)
• hold (from holden: to keep, occupy)