country house
noun
Simple meaning
A house serving as a weekend and holiday residence, used as a retreat from city life.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kuhntreehowsSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈkʌntɹiˈhaʊs
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
especially british
A house serving as a weekend and holiday residence, used as a retreat from city life; traditionally and archetypically in the country, and especially of wealthy owners.
especially British
A house (usually large and impressive) on an estate in the country
especially british
Such a house, even as a primary residence and even in an area that is no longer rural, but with an aesthetic in keeping with that traditional distinction of country ways.
Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see country, house: a house in the country: one not in town.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: A house serving as a weekend and holiday residence, used as a retreat from city life; traditionally and archetypically in the country, and especially of wealthy owners.
Used this way, country house is a word tied to one variety of English that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. Most speakers understand it but seldom reach for it.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Regional
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Uncommon in everyday speech
Usage note
Mainly used in British English, so it may read as unusual elsewhere.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.