Word Confusion: Home versus House

Plural for the noun: homes
Gerund: xx

Third person present verb: homes
Past tense or past participle: homed
Present participle: homing

Plural for the noun: houses
Gerund: housing

Third person present verb: houses
Past tense or past participle: housed
Present participle: housing

• Made, done, or intended for use in the place where one lives
• Relating to one’s own country and its domestic affairs

[Of a sports game] Played at the team’s own field or court

• Relating to or denoting a sports team that is playing at its own field or court

[North American English] Denoting the administrative center of an organization

Adverb:
To or at the place where one lives

• To the end or conclusion of a race or something difficult
• [Baseball] To or toward home plate
• To the intended or correct position

Noun:
The place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household

• The family or social unit occupying a home
• A house or an apartment considered as a commercial property
• A place where something flourishes, is most typically found, or from which it originates
• [Informal] A place where an object is kept

An institution for people needing professional care or supervision

[Sports] The goal or end point

• The place where a player is free from attack
• [In lacrosse] Each of the three players stationed nearest their opponents’ goal
• [Baseball] Short for home plate
• A game played or won by a team on their own field or court

Verb, intransitive:
[Of an animal] Return by instinct to its territory after leaving it

• If a pigeon, bred for long-distance racing, flies back to or arrives at its loft after being released at a distant point

[home in on] Move or be aimed toward (a target or destination) with great accuracy

• Focus attention on

Verb, transitive:
To provide with a home

[Computers] To provide with a network connection

To prepare (a 3D printer) for use by setting the horizontal and vertical limits for positioning the extruder before a printing task

To provide a display or storage space for

To direct, especially under control of an automatic aiming device, toward an airport, target, etc.

Relating to a business, institution, or society

• [Of a band or group] Resident or regularly performing in a club or other venue

For or suitable for a house

Of or being a product made by or for a specific retailer and often sold under the store’s own label

[Nautical] Any enclosed shelter above the weather deck of a vessel

Noun:
A building for human habitation, especially one that is lived in by a family or small group of people

• The people living in a house
• A household
• [Often House] A family or family lineage, especially a noble or royal one
• A dynasty
• [With modifier] A building in which animals live or in which things are kept

A building in which people meet for a particular activity

• A business or institution
• A restaurant or inn
• [Dated] A brothel
• A theater

A religious community that occupies a particular building

• A residential hall at a school or college
• [British English; formal] A college of a university

A legislative or deliberative assembly

• [the House] The House of Representatives or (in the UK or Canada) the House of Commons or Lords

[Also house music] A style of popular dance music

[Astrology] Any of the twelve divisions of the celestial sphere, based on the positions of the ascendant and midheaven at a given time and place, and determined by any of a number of methods

• A celestial division represented as a sector on an astrological chart, used in allocating elements of character and circumstance to different spheres of human life

Verb, intransitive:
To take shelter

• Dwell

Verb, transitive:
Provide (a person or animal) with shelter or living quarters

Provide space for

• Accommodate
• Insert or fix (something) in a socket or mortise

[North American English; informal] Eat the whole of (something), typically very quickly

[Nautical] To secure or stow

• To secure (a topmast)
• To secure and stow (an anchor)

He was looking forward to traditional home cooking.

Japanese competitors are selling cars for lower prices in the US than in their home market.

It was their first home game of the season.

The home team was up to bat.

The company has moved its home office.

Adverb:
What time did he get home last night?

I stayed home with the kids.

The favorite romped home six lengths clear.

On a tag play between home plate and first base, a batter-runner may retreat toward home plate to evade a tag.

He drove the bolt home noisily.

Noun:
I was nineteen when I left home and went to college.

They have made Provence their home.

He came from a good home and was well educated.

They built low-cost homes for first-time buyers.

Piedmont is the home of Italy’s finest red wines.

I left my wallet at home!

I don’t want to go into an old people’s home.

He was four fences from home.

Phew, he’s safe at home.

The first home’s responsibility is to score, the second home is considered the playmaker, and the third home’s responsibility is to transition the ball from defense to attack.

He slid into home.

The Eagles were playing at home.

Verb, intransitive:
A dozen geese homing to their summer nesting grounds.

Pigeons who do not home will win no prizes.

More than 100 missiles were launched, homing in on radar emissions.

He had a teaching style that homes in on what is of central importance for each student.

Verb, transitive:
After being microchipped and fully vaccinated, the puppy was homed with six weeks free insurance.

Each subscriber must be homed to a node in the network.

Do not try to do anything with your printer until you home it.

Adding lighting to the unit creates a stunning wall feature to home all your treasured possessions.

The library homes a wide variety of resources for the avid gardener.

The guidance system homed the missile on a target that was radar-illuminated by the launch aircraft.

She brought home the ugliest vase.

The Librarian is a house journal for our state libraries.

They’re the house band.

Get a good brand of house paint.

You’ll save money on laundry detergent if you buy the house brand.

We sheltered in the bridge house.

Noun:
My wife and I are moving to a new house.

Can you believe house prices?

The Red Cross is housing victims at the elementary school.

Do you want the whole house woken up?

The power and prestige of the House of Stewart has come down through the centuries.

The reptile house scares me.

It was a house of prayer.

Which publishing house accepted your work?

I ordered a bottle of their house wine.

She ran a house of ill-repute.

A hundred musicians performed in front of a full house.

The Cistercian house was established at Clairvaux in 1115.

It was a house with 45 boarders.

Magdalene, All Souls, and Balliol are some of the houses at the University of Oxford.

The sixty-member National Council is the country’s upper house.

The government commanded an overall majority in the House.

The DJs specialize in techno, garage, and house.

“There are twelve houses, each associated with a specific zodiac sign and planetary ruler” (House).

To learn the house under which you were born, you need to know the exact time, date, and location of your birth.

Verb, intransitive:
The immigrants were housed in a new development outside the town.

Star players are housed there.

The soldiers were housed in poorly heated huts.

The paintings are now housed in the National Gallery.

Verb, transitive:
We make exceptions to these rules if we need to house someone urgently.

The museum houses a collection of Roman sculpture.

This casing houses the batteries.

He housed the tenon.

This box houses the gears.

It could be that I just housed a massive burrito, but I don’t feel good.

The topmast was housed.

The sailor housed the anchor.

“Officers being housed behind (abaft) the mast and enlisted men before the mast” (Sailing).