household

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

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

   And calls, without affecting airs, / His household twice a day to prayers.

2. 2
   noun

   A line of ancestry; a race or house.

   In thee thy mother dies, our household's name, / My death's revenge, thy youth, and England's fame.

3. 3
   adj

   Found in or having its origin in a home.

   Whether boarding an airplane with underwear on your face to protest mask requirements, injecting yourself with horse dewormer instead of a safe and effective vaccine or swallowing household disinfectants because the President of the United States unironically suggested that it might help, the pandemic has amplified the frequency and tenor of ridiculous and sometimes alarming behavior.

4. 4
   adj

   Widely known to the public; familiar.

   a household word; a household name

5. 5
   noun

   a social unit living together

6. 6
   noun

   Entirety of work and management required to sustain the household.

7. 7
   noun

   Legal or culturally determined unit of people living together.

8. 8
   adj

   Belonging to the same house and family.

Etymology

From Middle English houshold. By surface analysis, house + hold. Cognate with Scots houshald, housald, housell, howsell (“household”), Dutch huishouden (“household”) (earlier huishoud), German Low German Huushollen (“household”) (Middle Low German hūsholt), German Haushalt (“household”), Swedish hushåll (“household, family”), Norwegian husholdning (“household”).