Housekept

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Managed the daily running of a home by cleaning, cooking, and organizing the household tasks
2. Looked after a residence by keeping it clean, orderly, and well supplied for the people living there
3. Took care of the domestic work of a dwelling, such as tidying, cooking, and maintaining its supplies

Etymology: "Housekept" is the past tense and past participle of "housekeep," which in turn is a back-formation from "housekeeping." That means English speakers did not build "housekeep" by adding pieces to a root; they worked backwards from the longer noun, treating the "-ing" as if it were a verb ending and stripping it off. "Housekeeping" came first, formed from "house" and "keeping," the ordinary sense of keeping or managing a household. Because "housekeep" was created this way, the verb is a late and fairly informal arrival compared with the noun it grew from. Its past forms follow regular English patterns: "housekeep" becomes "housekept" and the past participle takes the same shape, which is why the word looks like it belongs to the family of "keep," "kept," and "keeper."

Synonyms: keep house, run a household, manage a household