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household

noun · adjective

Simple meaning

A social unit living together.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

howshohld

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈhaʊshoʊld

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. Collectively, all the persons who live in a given house; a family including attendants, servants etc.; a domestic or family establishment.

  2. Entirety of work and management required to sustain the household.

  3. A social unit living together

  4. Legal or culturally determined unit of people living together.

adjective

  1. Belonging to the same house and family.

  2. Found in or having its origin in a home.

  3. Widely known to the public; familiar.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
A1 · Beginner (estimated)
Frequency
Common
Typical Use
General English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Collectively, all the persons who live in a given house; a family including attendants, servants etc.; a domestic or family establishment.

Used this way, household is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in family or home contexts.

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

Where it naturally appears

  • Family/home

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

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Collectively / belonging

household income

Entirety

household work

Other combinations

household wordshousehold sizehousehold surveyhousehold furniture

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Similar Words, What’s the Difference?

Close in meaning, but not always interchangeable.

  • house

    The people who live in a house.

  • family

    Members of one's family collectively.

  • home

    One's own dwelling place.

Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • household appliancenounCompound term

    An appliance that does a particular job in the home.

  • household artsnounCompound term

    Theory and practice of homemaking.

  • household linennounCompound term

    Drygoods for household use that are typically made of white cloth.

  • head of householdnounCompound term

    The head of a household or family or tribe.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: collectively

housefamilyhomedomesticmenage

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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.