homestead
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A house together with surrounding land and buildings.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
hohmstedSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈhoʊmstɛd
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
canadaus
A parcel of land in the interior of North America, usually 160 acres, that was distributed to settlers from Europe or eastern North America under the Dominion Lands Act of 1870 in Canada or the Homestead Act of 1862 in the United States.
CanadaUS
Land acquired from the United States public lands by filing a record and living on and cultivating it under the homestead law
A house together with surrounding land and buildings, especially on a farm; the property comprising these.
The place that is one's home.
CanadaUS
Dwelling that is usually a farmhouse and adjoining land
south africa
A cluster of several houses occupied by an extended family.
verb
Settle land given by the government and occupy it as a homestead
transitiveintransitive
To acquire or settle on land as a homestead.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The place that is one's home.
Used this way, homestead 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
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use homestead
- “The family worked hard to build their homestead on the new land.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A law conferring privileges on owners of homesteads.
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Words can change meaning depending on context.
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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.