household

From Middle English houshold, equivalent to 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”).

• (UK): IPA^(key): /ˈhaʊshəʊld/
• (US): enPR: housʹhōld, IPA^(key): /ˈhaʊshoʊld/

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household (plural households)

1. Collectively, all the persons who live in a given house; a family including attendants, servants etc.; a domestic or family establishment.
   • 1732, Jonathan Swift, The Beasts' Confession to the Priest:

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

   • 1975 March 13 [1975 March 7], “Chief of Staff of PLA Air Unit Dies in Training Exercise”, in Daily Report: People's Republic of China‎, volume I, number 50, Foreign Broadcast Information Service, →ISSN, →OCLC, page E 6‎:

     Shih Hung-pi was born a pauper at a poor household in Suichung County, Liaoning. He suffered untold misery in the old society. Then he joined the PLA.

   • 1994, Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela, London: Abacus, published 2010, page 5:

     Although I was a member of the royal household, I was not among the privileged few who were trained for rule.

2. Entirety of work and management required to sustain the household.
3. Legal or culturally determined unit of people living together.
4. (obsolete) A line of ancestry; a race or house.
   • 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene vi], line 39:

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

household (not comparable)

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.

   a household word; a household name

   • 1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii]:

     Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
     But he’ll remember with advantages
     What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
     Familiar in his mouth as household words,
     Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
     Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
     Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.