housing

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Buildings or other shelters in which people live: a shortage of housing in the city.
2. n. A place to live; a dwelling: She came to college early to look for housing.
3. n. Provision of lodging or shelter: the housing of refugees; a contract that includes housing.
4. n. Something that covers, protects, or supports, especially:
5. n. A frame, bracket, or box for holding or protecting a mechanical part: a wheel housing.
6. n. An enclosing frame in which a shaft revolves.
7. n. A hole, groove, or slot in a piece of wood into which another piece is inserted.
8. n. A niche for a statue.
9. n. Nautical The part of a mast that is below deck.
10. n. Nautical The part of a bowsprit that is inside the hull.
11. n. An ornamental or protective covering for a saddle.
12. n. Trappings for a horse. Often used in the plural.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The act of putting in a house or under shelter.
2. n. The building of houses.
3. n. A collection or range of houses.
4. n. Provision of house or shelter; the act of providing with houses: as, the housing of the poor.
5. n. Any covering or shelter, as a protection for a vessel laid up in a dock.
6. n. In carpentry, the space taken out of one piece to admit of the insertion of the extremity of another, for the purpose of connecting them.
7. n. In architecture, a niche for a statue.
8. n. Nautical, same as house-line.
9. n. In machinery: The part of the framing which holds a journal-box in place: called in the United States a jaw.
10. n. The uprights supporting the cross-slide of a planer.
11. n. One of the lateral plates of the box of a car-axle; a housing-box; a journal-box.
12. n. All that appertains to the house or homestead, its outbuildings, etc.
13. n. A covering; specifically, the trappings or caparison of a horse; especially, a complete covering used for defense or to cover and conceal defensive armor, or for ceremonial purposes only: generally in the plural. Compare trapping, bard, caparison.
14. n. The leather fastened at a horse's collar to turn over the back when it rains.
15. n. The inboard end of the bowsprit: also, that part of a mast that is below the upper or spar-deck.

Wiktionary

1. v. present participle of house.
2. n. uncountable The activity of enclosing something or providing a residence for someone.
3. n. uncountable Residences, collectively.
4. n. countable A mechanical component's container or covering.
5. n. A cover or cloth for a horse's saddle, as an ornamental or military appendage; a saddlecloth; a horse cloth; in plural, trappings.
6. n. An appendage to the hames or collar of a harness.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The act of putting or receiving under shelter; the state of dwelling in a habitation.
2. n. That which shelters or covers; houses, taken collectively.
3. n. The space taken out of one solid, to admit the insertion of part of another, as the end of one timber in the side of another.
4. n. A niche for a statue.
5. n. (Mach.) A frame or support for holding something in place, such as a piece of machinery, journal boxes, etc.
6. n. That portion of a mast or bowsprit which is beneath the deck or within the vessel.
7. n. A covering or protection, as an awning over the deck of a ship when laid up.
8. n. A houseline. See Houseline.
9. n. A cover or cloth for a horse's saddle, as an ornamental or military appendage; a saddlecloth; a horse cloth; in plural, trappings.
10. n. An appendage to the hames or collar of a harness.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. structures collectively in which people are housed
2. n. a protective cover designed to contain or support a mechanical component
3. n. stable gear consisting of a decorated covering for a horse, especially (formerly) for a warhorse