Household

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈhaʊshəʊld/

Definitions

1. A domestic unit consisting of people living together in one residence, or relating to the management and activities of a home
2. A domestic group of people living in the same residence who share responsibilities for managing home life and collaborating on daily activities
3. A social unit that includes individuals residing together and may involve shared responsibilities for home management and daily tasks

Etymology: The surprising part of "household" is that its second half, "hold," once meant something closer to "possession" or "property" than to grasping. Middle English speakers joined "house" with "hold" to name the people and property kept under one roof, and the compound is shared across Germanic languages: Dutch "huishouden," German "Haushalt," and Swedish "hushåll" all describe the same thing in almost identical construction. The English form descends from Middle English "houshold," and the same pattern appears in Scots as "houshald" and "housald." The compound reflects a time when a home was a working unit rather than just a residence. The people living under one roof, whether family, servants, or dependents, were all managed together, so the word named the whole group and its shared affairs. That broader sense of a unit of people living together is what the word still carries, and the older meaning of "hold" as possession is preserved in the way the term gathers property and people into a single idea.

Synonyms: domestic, family, home

Antonyms: individual, singular