residence
Pluralresidences
- 1The place where a person lives; one's home.
He listed the cottage as his primary residence on the tax form.
The ambassador's official residence sits on a quiet, tree-lined street.
Similarhome, domicile, dwelling, abode, address
Note
The core sense, and the one the word's history explains most directly. It comes through Middle English and Old French residence from Medieval Latin residentia, built on the verb behind reside. Its signature construction is take up residence: Macaulay writes that Johnson "took up his residence in London." The word suits official settings, such as a primary residence on a tax form or an ambassador's official residence.
- 2The condition of making one's home in a given place or setting.
His residence abroad gave him fluency in two languages.
Continuous residence in the state qualifies students for lower tuition.
Similarstay, domicile, habitation
Note
Here the word names the fact of living somewhere rather than the place, and it can even be counted. Sir Matthew Hale's History of the Common Law of England (1713) says the confessor "made considerable residences in Normandy," meaning a series of long stays. Everyday use usually keeps it uncountable, as in residence abroad or continuous residence, which is the shape rules about tuition and eligibility are written around.
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- 5The place where a corporation is legally established or based.
For tax purposes, the corporation's residence determines which laws apply.
The bank moved its legal residence to another jurisdiction.
Similardomicile, seat, base, headquarters
- 6The permanent location of a thing, where it lies or is kept.
The relic's permanent residence is a sealed glass case in the cathedral.
These fossils have their residence deep within the rock layers.
Similarhome, repository, abode
Note
A figurative widening of the home sense: things, not only people, have a residence where they permanently rest. Milton, in Eikonoklastes (1649), calls a court "the highest court and residence of all his regal power," so even an abstraction like power can be housed. The phrasing is elevated. In plain prose, seat or home usually does the same work.
- 7A foreign intelligence service's operational base in another country, typically operating undercover within an embassy.
The residence in the embassy coordinated agents across the region.
Intercepted cables from the residence were decrypted by counterintelligence.
Similarstation
Note
Espionage gives the word a technical meaning: the intelligence station itself, also called the rezidentura. Such a station typically works under cover inside an embassy, so context has to separate it from an ambassador's official residence, which belongs to the ordinary home sense. In intelligence writing, a residence coordinates agents and sends cables rather than housing anyone.
- 8The settling or sinking of solid matter, as of a sediment.
Slow residence of the silt produced distinct layers at the bottom.
Chemists observed the residence of suspended particles over several hours.
Similarsettling, sedimentation, deposition, subsidence
Note
A physical sense far from the home meaning: the settling of solids through a liquid. It names the process, not the deposit. Francis Bacon (1627) glosses it himself, writing of "the ordinary Residence or Settlement of Liquors" and putting it down to weight. Read it as settlement or subsidence. The word for what ends up at the bottom is the "sediment" sense.
- 9The matter that falls to the bottom of liquids; sediment, or leftover refuse.
The brewer skimmed the residence from the bottom of the vat.
Dark residence coated the inside of the old bottle.
Similarsediment, residue, dregs, deposit, sludge
Note
Where the settling sense is the process, this is what the process leaves: the deposit at the bottom of a liquid, and by extension refuse of any kind. Jeremy Taylor's Sermon on Gunpowder Treason (1638) speaks of "waters of a muddy residence," judging water by what sinks out of it. Residuum, offered alongside it, makes the same point: what is left behind.
Practice
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Origin
This word came into Middle English from Old French residence, which came from Medieval Latin residentia. That traces back to residēns, the present participle of resideō, and is equivalent to reside plus the suffix -ence.