house

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A structure serving as a dwelling for one or more persons, especially for a family.
2. n. A household or family.
3. n. Something, such as a burrow or shell, that serves as a shelter or habitation for a wild animal.
4. n. A dwelling for a group of people, such as students or members of a religious community, who live together as a unit: a sorority house.
5. n. A building that functions as the primary shelter or location of something: a carriage house; the lion house at the zoo.
6. n. A facility, such as a theater or restaurant, that provides entertainment or food for the public: a movie house; the specialty of the house.
7. n. The audience or patrons of such an establishment: a full house.
8. n. A commercial firm: a brokerage house.
9. n. A publishing company: a house that specializes in cookbooks.
10. n. A gambling casino.
11. n. Slang A house of prostitution.
12. n. A residential college within a university.
13. n. A legislative or deliberative assembly.
14. n. The hall or chamber in which such an assembly meets.
15. n. A quorum of such an assembly.
16. n. A family line including ancestors and descendants, especially a royal or noble family: the House of Orange.
17. n. One of the 12 parts into which the heavens are divided in astrology.
18. n. The sign of the zodiac indicating the seat or station of a planet in the heavens. Also called mansion.
19. n. House music.
20. v. To provide living quarters for; lodge: The cottage housed ten students.
21. v. To shelter, keep, or store in or as if in a house: a library housing rare books.
22. v. To contain; harbor.
23. v. To fit into a socket or mortise.
24. v. Nautical To secure or stow safely.
25. v. To reside; dwell.
26. v. To take shelter.
27. idiom. on fire Informal In an extremely speedy manner: ran away like a house on fire; tickets that sold like a house afire.
28. idiom. on the house At the expense of the establishment; free: food and drinks on the house.
29. idiom. put To organize one's affairs in a sensible, logical way.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A building designed to be used as a place of residence, or of human occupation for any purpose: as, a dwelling-house; a banking-house; a house of worship; a public house. In law the word house, used for a dwelling-place, is sometimes interpreted as excluding and sometimes as including outbuildings.
2. n. Hence An abiding-place; an abode; a place or means of lodgment; a fixed shelter or investment: as, the hermit-crab carries its house on its back.
3. n. A building used for some purpose other than human occupation: usually with a descriptive prefix: as, a cow-house; a warehouse; a tool-house.
4. n. The persons collectively who dwell together under one roof; a family; a household.
5. n. A family regarded as consisting of ancestors, descendants, and kindred; a race of persons from one stock; a tribe; especially, a noble family or an illustrious race: as, the house of Hapsburg; the house of Hanover; the house of Israel or of Judah.
6. n. A legislative body; usually, one of the divisions of the legislative branch of a government acting separately, or of any deliberative body divided into two chambers: as, the House of Lords or of Commons in the British Parliament; the House of Representatives in the United States Congress; the House of Bishops and the House of Delegates in the American Episcopal Church. The less numerous or higher in rank of the two bodies composing a bicameral legislature is commonly spoken of, though not officially designated, as the upper house, the other as the lower house.
7. n. Specifically, in the United States, the lower house, or House of Representatives, the more numerous of the two bodies of the national legislature. The name is also given in some States to the corresponding body in the State legislature. See congress, 4.
8. n. The audience or attendance at a place of entertainment.
9. n. In com., a firm or commercial establishment: as, the house of Jones Brothers.
10. n. Chamber; room; specifically, in provincial English use, the ordinary sitting-room in a farm-house; in sulphuric-acid works, one of the chambers in which the acid is formed.
11. n. In astrology, a twelfth part of the heavens as divided by great circles drawn through the north and south points of the horizon, in the same way as meridians pass through the earth's poles. The heavens, visible and invisible, excluding the parts that never rise and that never set, were thus divided into twelve parts, six being above the horizon and six below. But there was considerable diversity in the details of the rule for dividing the heavens into houses. They are of different relative magnitudes. according to the different rules which were used for finding their limits. The twelve houses were numbered round from east to south, and so on, beginning with that which lay in the east immediately below the horizon. The first house was called the house of life; the second, that of fortune or riches; the third that of brethren; the fourth, that of relations; the fifth, that of children; the sixth, that of health; the seventh, that of marriage; the eighth, that of death or the upper portal; the ninth, that of religion; the tenth, that of dig nities; the eleventh, that of friends and benefactors; and the twelfth, that of enemies or of captivity. The succeedent houses are the second, fifth, eighth, and eleventh. The cadent houses are the third, sixth, ninth, and twelfth.
12. n. A square or division on a chess-board.—
13. n. The workhouse; poorhouse.
14. n. An outhouse; a privy.
15. To put or receive into a house; provide with a dwelling or residence; put or keep under a roof; cover; shelter; protect by covering.
16. To cause to take shelter.
17. To hide.
18. Nautical: To arrange in the form of ridged roof, as an awning, so as to shed rain.
19. To remove from exposure; put in a place of deposit or a state of security: as, to house a boat or a sail. A gun is housed by running it in on deck and securing it by tackle, muzzle-lashing, and breeching, after the breech has been depressed so that the muzzle rests against the side of the ship above the port. Topmasts and topgallantmasts are housed by partly lowering them, to lessen the effect of wind on the masts and rigging.
20. In carpentry, to fix in a socket, mortice, or other space cut out, as a board or timber fitting into another.
21. To take shelter or lodging; take up abode; reside.
22. In astrology, to be situated in a house or region of the heavens.
23. n. A covering; housing; especially, a covering of textile material, as for a piece of furniture, fitted more or less accurately to the object covered.
24. n. A child's coverlet.
25. To cover with or as with a housing.
26. n. In some tunicates, as Appendicularia and Oikopleura, a temporary gelatinous envelop, representing the tunic of other forms. It is formed with great rapidity as a secretion from the surface of the ectoderm and is frequently thrown off and renewed.

Wiktionary

1. n. ​ A structure serving as an abode of human beings.
2. n. The mode of living as if in a house.
3. n. The usual place to find an object or an animal.
4. n. A structure to protect or store something or someone.
5. n. A protective structure on the deck of a ship.
6. n. ​ A theatre building, or the audience for a live theatrical or similar performance.
7. n. politics A deliberative assembly forming a component of a legislature, or, more rarely, the room or building in which such an assembly normally meets.
8. n. ​An establishment, whether actual, as a pub, or virtual, as a website. Particularly restaurant, casino, or financial or trading company.
9. n. business A company or organisation.
10. n. A dynasty, a familial descendance, for example, a royal House.
11. n. astrology One of the twelve divisions of an astrological chart.
12. n. A grouping of schoolchildren for the purposes of competition in sports and other activities.
13. n. ​House music.
14. n. curling The four concentric circles where points are scored on the ice
15. n. An early or alternative name for the game bingo.
16. n. UK A complete set of numbers in bingo.
17. n. uncountable, US An aggregate of characteristics of a house.
18. n. this sense) (uncountable) A children's game in which the players pretend to be members of a household.
19. v. transitive To keep within a structure or container.
20. v. transitive To admit to residence; to harbor/harbour.
21. v. To take shelter or lodging; to abide; to lodge.
22. v. transitive, astrology To dwell within one of the twelve astrological houses.
23. v. transitive To contain or cover mechanical parts.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A structure intended or used as a habitation or shelter for animals of any kind; but especially, a building or edifice for the habitation of man; a dwelling place, a mansion.
2. n. Household affairs; domestic concerns; particularly in the phrase to keep house. See below.
3. n. Those who dwell in the same house; a household.
4. n. A family of ancestors, descendants, and kindred; a race of persons from the same stock; a tribe; especially, a noble family or an illustrious race
5. n. One of the estates of a kingdom or other government assembled in parliament or legislature; a body of men united in a legislative capacity
6. n. (Com.) A firm, or commercial establishment.
7. n. A public house; an inn; a hotel.
8. n. (Astrol.) A twelfth part of the heavens, as divided by six circles intersecting at the north and south points of the horizon, used by astrologers in noting the positions of the heavenly bodies, and casting horoscopes or nativities. The houses were regarded as fixed in respect to the horizon, and numbered from the one at the eastern horizon, called the ascendant, first house, or house of life, downward, or in the direction of the earth's revolution, the stars and planets passing through them in the reverse order every twenty-four hours.
9. n. A square on a chessboard, regarded as the proper place of a piece.
10. n. An audience; an assembly of hearers, as at a lecture, a theater, etc..
11. n. The body, as the habitation of the soul.
12. n. The grave.
13. v. To take or put into a house; to shelter under a roof; to cover from the inclemencies of the weather; to protect by covering
14. v. To drive to a shelter.
15. v. To admit to residence; to harbor.
16. v. To deposit and cover, as in the grave.
17. v. (Naut.) To stow in a safe place; to take down and make safe.
18. v. To take shelter or lodging; to abide to dwell; to lodge.
19. v. (Astrol.) To have a position in one of the houses. See House, n., 8.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. an official assembly having legislative powers
2. n. a social unit living together
3. n. a building in which something is sheltered or located
4. n. the members of a business organization that owns or operates one or more establishments
5. n. a building where theatrical performances or motion-picture shows can be presented
6. n. a dwelling that serves as living quarters for one or more families
7. n. aristocratic family line
8. v. provide housing for
9. n. play in which children take the roles of father or mother or children and pretend to interact like adults
10. v. contain or cover
11. n. the management of a gambling house or casino
12. n. the members of a religious community living together
13. n. the audience gathered together in a theatre or cinema
14. n. (astrology) one of 12 equal areas into which the zodiac is divided