household
UK/ˈhaʊshəʊld//ˈhaʊshoʊld/
household noun: all the persons who live in a given house or other home; a family including attendants, servants etc.; a domestic or family establishment.
Noun
household (plural households)
- All the persons who live in a given house or other home; a family including attendants, servants etc.; a domestic or family establishment.
- And calls, without affecting airs, / His household twice a day to prayers.1732, Jonathan Swift, The Beasts' Confession to the Priest
- Shih Hung-pi was born a pauper at a poor household in Suichung County, Liaoning. He suffered untold misery in the old society. Then he joined the PLA.1975 March 13 [1975 March 7], “Chief of Staff of PLA Air Unit Dies in Training Exercise”, in Daily Report: People's Republic of China, volume I, number 50, Foreign Broadcast Information Service...
- Synonyms:
- ménage
- Entirety of work and management required to sustain the household.
- Legal or culturally determined unit of people living together.
- A line of ancestry; a race or house.
- In thee thy mother dies, our household's name, / My death's revenge, thy youth, and England's fame.1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
Adjective
household (not comparable)
- Belonging to the same house and family.
- Found in or having its origin in a home.
- Whether boarding an airplane with underwear on your face to protest mask requirements, injecting yourself with horse dewormer instead of a safe and effective vaccine or swallowing household disinfectants because the President of the United States unironically suggested that it might help, the...2022 February 10, Abdul El-Sayed, “Canadian trucker protests are the latest example of Covid-19 absurdity”, in CNN, archived from the original on 22 Apr 2022
- Widely known to the public; familiar.
- a household word; a household name
- Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words,
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
Proper noun capitalized: Household
Household (plural Households)
- A surname.
household meaning in Hindi, Marathi, Urdu and Bengali
household in Hindi
- household, familial
- घरेलू gharelū
- household
- गृहस्थी gŕhasthī, दुनियादारी duniyādārī
household in Marathi
- a household
- गृहस्थी gruhasthī
household in Urdu
- household, familial
- گھریلو gharelū
- household
- خاندان xāndān
household in Bengali
- পরিবার, পরিজনবর্গ, রাজসংসার, পারিবারিক, গৃহস্থালিসংক্রান্ত
More languagesFewer languages
- household in Telugu
- కుటుంబము kuṭumbamu
- household in Malayalam
- ഗൃഹജനം, കുടുംബം, ബന്ധുക്കൾ, കുടുംബാംഗങ്ങൾ
- household in Kannada
- ಮನೆತನ
- household in Punjabi
- ਟੱਬਰ ṭabbar, ٹبر ṭabbar, گھر ghar, ਘਰ ghară
- household in Gujarati
- ટાબર ṭābar, ઘર ghar
- household in Sanskrit
- कुटुम्ब kuṭumba, कुटुम्बक kuṭumbaka, भरीमन् bhárīman, इभ íbha
- household in Nepali
- घरपरिवार, घरायसी
- household in Pashto
- کورنۍ koranə́y
Examples of household in a sentence
- Although I was a member of the royal household, I was not among the privileged few who were trained for rule.1994, Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela, London: Abacus, published 2010, page 5:
- Nearly half of all renter households in the US were cost-burdened in 2023, meaning they paid more than 30% of their income towards housing costs, according to new government data.2024 September 12, Samantha Delouya, “Nearly half of US renters spend more than 30% of their income on housing costs”, in CNN Business:
Synonyms of household
Forms of household
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | households |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Households |
Origin of household
From Middle English houshold. By surface analysis, house + hold. Cognate with Scots houshald, housald, housell, howsell (“household”), Dutch huishouden (“household”) (earlier huishoud), German Low German Huushollen (“household”) (Middle Low German hūsholt), German Haushalt (“household”), Swedish hushåll (“household, family”), Norwegian husholdning (“household”).
English surname, from Middle English houshold (“household, family”), denoting someone who is a householder or is a member of a particular one.
Words formed from household
- extended household
- head of household
- household appliance
- household art
- household arts
- household bread
- Household Cavalry
- household deity
- household-dwelling
- household effect
- household effects
- householder
- household god
- household goods
- household help
- household income
- householding
- household name
- householdry
- householdship
- household soap
- household word
- interhousehold
- intrahousehold
- joint household
- multihousehold
- nonhousehold
- put one's household in order
- royal household
Phrases with household
Questions about household
- What does household mean?
- Household means all the persons who live in a given house or other home; a family including attendants, servants etc.; a domestic or family establishment.
- What is household in Hindi?
- Household in Hindi is घरेलू (gharelū), गृहस्थी (gŕhasthī), दुनियादारी (duniyādārī). See Household meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use household in a sentence?
- Although I was a member of the royal household, I was not among the privileged few who were trained for rule.
- What part of speech is household?
- Household can be a noun, an adjective or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce household?
- Household is pronounced /ˈhaʊshəʊld/ (UK).
- What is the plural of household?
- The plural of household is households.
Words near household in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: household (page history and authors); Household (page history and authors); गृहस्थी (Hindi) (page history and authors); गृहस्थी (Marathi) (page history and authors); خاندان (Urdu) (page history and authors); household (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); కుటుంబము (Telugu) (page history and authors); household (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); household (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ٹبر (Punjabi) (page history and authors); ઘર (Gujarati) (page history and authors); इभ (Sanskrit) (page history and authors); household (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); کورنۍ (Pashto) (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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-household.ogg.
Cite this entry: “household.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/household. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.