dwelling

/ˈdwɛl.ɪŋ/

dwelling noun: a house or place in which a person lives; a habitation, a home. Also the present participle and gerund of dwell.

Noun

dwelling (plural dwellings)

A house or place in which a person lives; a habitation, a home.
- The old house served as a dwelling for Albert.
- For Philip's dwelling fronted on the street, / The latest house to landward; but behind, / With one small gate that open'd on the waste, / Flourish'd a little garden square and wall'd; [...]1864, Alfred Tennyson, “Enoch Arden”, in Enoch Arden, &c., London: Edward Moxon & Co., […], →OCLC, page 40
Synonyms:

abode, crib, digs, domicile, flop, habitation, home, homestead, livingplace, pad

Also used as

dwelling is also the present participle and gerund of dwell.

dwelling meaning in Bengali, Pashto, Arabic and Thai

dwelling in Bengali

house or place in which a person lives: মকান mokan, মঞ্জিল monjil

dwelling in Pashto

house or place in which a person lives: کور kor, خونه xuna

dwelling in Arabic

house or place in which a person lives: مَنْزِل manzil, سَكَن sakan

dwelling in Thai

house or place in which a person lives: ชุมรุม, ทำเนียบ tam-nîiap, เวสน์

More languagesFewer languages

dwelling in Vietnamese: chổ ở

Examples of dwelling in a sentence

The place had the empty and musty feel and smell usual to a dwelling no longer inhabited.1904, Jack London, chapter 32, in The Sea-Wolf (Macmillan’s Standard Library), New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap, →OCLC:
He turned back to the scene before him and the enormous new block of council dwellings.1963, Margery Allingham, “Foreword: The Turk Street Mile”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, page 9:

All 40 example sentences with dwelling

Synonyms of dwelling

5 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of dwelling

Forms of dwelling

plural	dwellings

Plural of dwelling: dwellings

Origin of dwelling

From Middle English dwellynge, dwellyng (“delay, continuance, abode”), equivalent to dwell + -ing. More at dwell.

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Words formed from dwelling

Phrases with dwelling

Words that rhyme with dwelling

1 more rhymesFewer rhymes

welling

Questions about dwelling

What does dwelling mean?: Dwelling means a house or place in which a person lives; a habitation, a home.
What is dwelling in Bengali?: Dwelling in Bengali is মকান (mokan), মঞ্জিল (monjil). See Dwelling meaning in Bengali.
How do you use dwelling in a sentence?: The place had the empty and musty feel and smell usual to a dwelling no longer inhabited.
What part of speech is dwelling?: Dwelling is a noun.
How do you pronounce dwelling?: Dwelling is pronounced /ˈdwɛl.ɪŋ/.
What is the plural of dwelling?: The plural of dwelling is dwellings.

Words near dwelling in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: dwelling (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-dwelling.ogg.

Cite this entry: “dwelling.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dwelling. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.