a building in which people live; residence for human beings.
2.
a household.
3.
(often initial capital letter) a family, including ancestors and descendants: the great houses of France; the House of Hapsburg.
4.
a building for any purpose: a house of worship.
5.
a theater, concert hall, or auditorium: a vaudeville house.
6.
the audience of a theater or the like.
7.
a place of shelter for an animal, bird, etc.
8.
the building in which a legislative or official deliberative body meets.
9.
(initial capital letter) the body itself, esp. of a bicameral legislature: the House of Representatives.
10.
a quorum of such a body.
11.
(often initial capital letter) a commercial establishment; business firm: the House of Rothschild; a publishing house.
12.
a gambling casino.
13.
the management of a commercial establishment or of a gambling casino: rules of the house.
14.
an advisory or deliberative group, esp. in church or college affairs.
15.
a college in an English-type university.
16.
a residential hall in a college or school; dormitory.
17.
the members or residents of any such residential hall.
18.
Informal. a brothel; whorehouse.
19.
British. a variety of lotto or bingo played with paper and pencil, esp. by soldiers as a gambling game.
20.
Also called parish.Curling. the area enclosed by a circle 12 or 14 ft. (3.7 or 4.2 m) in diameter at each end of the rink, having the tee in the center.
21.
Nautical. any enclosed shelter above the weather deck of a vessel: bridge house; deck house.
22.
Astrology. one of the 12 divisions of the celestial sphere, numbered counterclockwise from the point of the eastern horizon.
–verb (used with object)
23.
to put or receive into a house, dwelling, or living quarters: More than 200 students were housed in the dormitory.
24.
to give shelter to; harbor; lodge: to house flood victims in schools.
25.
to provide with a place to work, study, or the like: This building houses our executive staff.
26.
to provide storage space for; be a receptacle for or repository of: The library houses 600,000 books.
27.
to remove from exposure; put in a safe place.
28.
Nautical.
a.
to stow securely.
b.
to lower (an upper mast) and make secure, as alongside the lower mast.
c.
to heave (an anchor) home.
29.
Carpentry.
a.
to fit the end or edge of (a board or the like) into a notch, hole, or groove.
b.
to form (a joint) between two pieces of wood by fitting the end or edge of one into a dado of the other.
–verb (used without object)
30.
to take shelter; dwell.
–adjective
31.
of, pertaining to, or noting a house.
32.
for or suitable for a house: house paint.
33.
of or being a product made by or for a specific retailer and often sold under the store's own label: You'll save money on the radio if you buy the house brand.
34.
served by a restaurant as its customary brand: the house wine.
—Idioms
35.
bring down the house, to call forth vigorous applause from an audience; be highly successful: The children's performances brought down the house.
to fill a theater with many people admitted on free passes; paper the house.
b.
to arrange or space the seating of patrons in such a way as to make an audience appear larger or a theater or nightclub more crowded than it actually is.
38.
keep house, to maintain a home; manage a household.
39.
like a house on fire or afire, very quickly; with energy or enthusiasm: The new product took off like a house on fire.
40.
on the house, as a gift from the management; free: Tonight the drinks are on the house.
41.
put or set one's house in order,
a.
to settle one's affairs.
b.
to improve one's behavior or correct one's faults: It is easy to criticize others, but it would be better to put one's own house in order first.
[Origin: bef. 900; (n.) ME h(o)us, OE hūs; c. D huis, LG huus, ON hūs, G Haus, Goth -hūs (in gudhūs temple); (v.) ME housen, OE hūsian, deriv. of the n.]
—Synonyms 1. domicile. House,dwelling,residence,home are terms applied to a place to live in. Dwelling is now chiefly poetic, or used in legal or technical contexts, as in a lease or in the phrase multiple dwelling.Residence is characteristic of formal usage and often implies size and elegance of structure and surroundings: the private residence of the king. These two terms and house have always had reference to the structure to be lived in. Home has recently taken on this meaning and become practically equivalent to house, the new meaning tending to crowd out the older connotations of family ties and domestic comfort. See also hotel.
apartment house, building having three or more dwelling units. Numerous early examples of this form of dwelling have been found in remains of Roman and medieval cities and in the 17th-cent. Pueblo villages of North America. Its most important development came with the Industrial Revolution. After 1850 crowded slums began to develop in the cities of Europe and the United States. Few good, low-cost multiple dwellings were built before World War I, but great progress was made in the development of more luxurious apartment buildings, particularly in Paris and Vienna. In the 1880s fireproof steel-frame construction, the improvement of the elevator, and the introduction of electric lighting made possible the rapid evolution of the apartment building. In 1901 New York City put into effect a tenement-house law; its purpose was to protect occupants against fire hazards and unsanitary and unsafe conditions.
Between 1919 and 1934 there appeared in Europe many commendable low-cost housing developments. Important examples are projects by Gropius at the Siemensstadt in Berlin, J. J. P. Oud's group at Hoek van Holland, and H. P. Berlage's apartments in Amsterdam. There has been government-subsidized public housing in the United States since 1937. A phenomenal increase in the building of apartments has taken place since 1921 in all the larger cities, reaching a peak in New York City, where apartments largely replaced private houses. In the mid-20th cent. a radical experiment in multiple dwellings called Habitat was designed for the Montreal Expo 67 by Moshe Safdie.
In addition to the traditional rental unit, contemporary apartments are available in a number of permutations. With cooperative apartments the tenants belong to a corporation that owns the building. In the condominium each apartment unit is owned separately and owner-tenants generally form an association to provide for apartment maintenance. The apartment hotel combines the accommodations of an apartment, including cooking space, with the services characteristic of a hotel. A greater sense of community is fostered in co-housing, where residents plan, develop, and manage a community, often comprised of apartments and town houses, that combines private quarters with common spaces. Apartment houses have spread to the suburbs of the larger cities, where they frequently include gardens, tennis courts, and children's playgrounds. Numerous apartment houses are constructed as living complexes for retired persons.
See S. Paul, Apartments: Their Design and Development (1967); E. Thompson, Apartments, Townhouses, and Condominiums (1975); D. Mackay, Multiple Family Housing (1977); and E. Cromley Alone Together: A History of New York's Early Apartments (1990).
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