Powerhouse

How to spell powerhouse

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce powerhouse

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does powerhouse mean?

1. nounA person, team, or organisation with great energy, drive, or influence.
2. nounA building containing machinery, especially generators, for producing electrical power.

Powerhouse in a sentence

• The small firm became an economic powerhouse within a decade.

• The old riverside powerhouse once supplied electricity to the whole valley.

• She is a powerhouse of productivity, finishing three reports before lunch.

• Engineers inspected the turbines inside the hydroelectric powerhouse.

Where does powerhouse come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Powerhouse is a transparent English compound, joining 'power' and 'house', that emerged in the late nineteenth century. 'Power' came into English through Old French 'poeir' or 'pouair', from a Vulgar Latin form of the Latin verb 'posse', meaning 'to be able', so the word carries the old sense of capability or strength. 'House' is a thoroughly native word, descended from Old English 'hus', the same Germanic root that gave German 'Haus', simply meaning a dwelling or building. The literal powerhouse was a building that housed the machinery generating electrical power, a usage that became common as towns were electrified around the 1880s. From there the word quickly took on its vivid figurative life, describing any person, team, or organisation bursting with energy and force. Because both halves are familiar everyday words, the only real spelling care is remembering to write it solid, with no space or hyphen.

How the word is built

• power (energy, force)
• house (building, structure)