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dwelling

noun

Simple meaning

A house or place in which a person lives.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

dwehling

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈdwɛlɪŋ

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.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. A house or place in which a person lives; a habitation, a home.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
Frequency
Moderately Common
Typical Use
General and technical use

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: A house or place in which a person lives; a habitation, a home.

Used this way, dwelling is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Nearby words

  • abode , more formal, and heavier in everyday conversation

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use dwelling

  • “He built a modest dwelling near the pond.”noun

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

House

dwelling place

Housing

family dwelling

Other combinations

dwelling housedwelling unitprivate dwellingnew dwelling

Tap the highlighted word to open its own entry.

Similar Words, What’s the Difference?

Close in meaning, but not always interchangeable.

  • home

    One's own dwelling place.

  • habitation

    A place of abode; settled dwelling; residence; house.

  • dwelling house

    A house intended as a residential building (and not, for example, as a place of business).

Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • dwellverbBase word

    Think moodily or anxiously about something.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • dwellernounPerson or profession

    A person who inhabits a particular place.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • dwelling housenounCompound term

    Housing that someone is living in.

  • cliff dwellingnounCompound term

    A rock and adobe dwelling built on sheltered ledges in the sides of a cliff.

  • bottom-dwellingadjectiveCompound term

    Of or relating to fish and marine life that dwell on the bottom of a body of water.

  • lake dwellingnounCompound term

    Dwelling built on piles in or near a lake.

  • pile dwellingnounCompound term

    Dwelling built on piles in or near a lake.

  • single dwellingnounCompound term

    A house that stands alone.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: house or place in which a person lives

homehabitationabodeFormaldwelling house

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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.