household

Pluralhouseholds

1. 1
   nouncountable

   All the people who live together in one house, counted as a single group: including family members and any servants or attendants.

   The entire household gathered in the dining room for the announcement.

   In wealthy Victorian homes, the household might include a cook, a maid, and a butler.

   Similarfamily, house

   Note

   Middle English houshold, built from house and hold, has close relatives across the Germanic languages: Dutch huishouden, German Haushalt, Swedish hushåll. In older use the servants and attendants count as members, so Swift's master can call his whole household to prayers and Nelson Mandela can speak of the royal household as something far wider than parents and children. Modern statistics keep the counting habit in phrases like renter households and poor households.

2. 2
   adjective

   Found in the home, or having its origin in domestic life.

   Most household accidents happen in the kitchen.

   Bleach and ammonia are typical household chemicals that should never be mixed.

   Similardomestic, home

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A group of people living together that the law or local custom treats as a single unit.

   Survey forms ask one adult to answer on behalf of the whole household.

   Tax rules often depend on the number of earners in a household.

   Similarfamily

   Note

   Here the household is a unit that rules define, not simply the people who happen to live under one roof. Law or custom decides who belongs, and family relationship need not enter into it. That is why survey forms and tax rules use the word: one adult answers for the unit, or earners are counted within it. Membership is fixed by definition, which sets it apart from the lived-in sense.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   The full range of work and management needed to keep a home running.

   Managing the household (meals, cleaning, laundry, and finances) became a full-time job.

   She ran the entire household alone while her husband was deployed overseas.

   Similarhome, house

5. 5
   adjective

   Known to the public at large; familiar to almost everyone.

   Within a year, the startup's logo had become a household name.

   Few scientists ever become household names, but she did.

   Similarfamiliar, famous, well-known

   Oppositeunknown, obscure

   Note

   The figurative step runs from the home out to the whole public: something spoken of as often as everyday things at home is known to everyone. Shakespeare's Henry the Fifth already has names "familiar in his mouth as household words" in 1599. Today the sense lives almost entirely in two fixed pairs, household name and household word, and the adjective always comes before its noun.

6. 6
   adjective

   Belonging to a single house and the family that lives in it.

   Roman families kept household deities believed to protect everyone under one roof.

   The will divided the estate among the household members descended from the founder.

   Similardomestic, family

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