c : a particular kind of restaurant
We had dinner at the local fish house.
a seafood house
Oyster stew is a specialty of the house. [=a special dish that is featured in a restaurant]
◊ A house wine is a basic wine that is always available in a restaurant. A house salad and a house (salad) dressing are the regular salad and dressing in a U.S. restaurant.
Would you like the house salad or a spinach salad?
The house dressing is a creamy vinaigrette.
— see also coffeehouse, steak house
6
[count] : the audience in a theater or concert hall
They had a full/packed house on opening night.
When the movie ended, there wasn't a dry eye in the house. [=everyone had tears in their eyes]
◊ To bring down the house or to bring the house down is to get great approval and applause or laughter from an audience.
His performance brought down the house night after night.
7
House [count] : a royal or noble family including ancestors and all the people who are related to them
the House of Tudor
8
[noncount] : a type of electronic dance music with a heavy, regular beat
— called also house music
clean house US
1
: to clean the floors, furniture, etc., inside a house
He cleans house on Tuesdays.
2
: to make important basic changes in an organization, business, etc., in order to correct problems
After the corruption was revealed, the police chief decided it was time to clean house.
(from) house to house
◊ If you go (from) house to house, you go to each house or apartment in an area and do or ask for something.
Volunteers went from house to house asking for donations.
— see also house-to-house
house in order
◊ To put/get/set (etc.) your house in order is to improve or correct the way you do things.
We should get our (own) house in order before we criticize others for their mistakes.
The company needs to get its financial house in order. [=to correct its financial problems]
keep house
: to do the work that is needed to take care of a house
When I started living on my own I had no idea how to cook or keep house.
You need someone to keep house for you.
— see also housekeeper, housekeeping
like a house on fire informal
: extremely well
Those two got on/along like a house on fire. [=they liked each other very much]
(US) The business started out like a house on fire. [=the business started very successfully]
on the house
: without charge : free
The drinks are on the house.
people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones
— see 1glass
play house
◊ When children play house they pretend that they are adults and that they are doing the things that adults do in a house, such as cooking and serving food.
She always loved playing house with her little sister.
set up house
: to become settled in a house where you are going to live
They moved to California and set up house in a suburb of Los Angeles.
— houseful /ˈhaʊsˌfʊl/ noun, plural housefuls [count]
a houseful of guests
2 house /ˈhaʊz/ verb
houses; housed; housing
Learner's definition of HOUSE
[+ object]
1
: to provide shelter or a living space for (someone)
More prisons are needed to house the growing number of inmates.
— often used as (be) housed
The soldiers were housed in poorly heated huts.
2
: to be a shelter for (something) : to store or contain (something)
The museum houses an impressive collection of jewels.
— often used as (be) housed
The paintings are now housed in the National Gallery.
3
: to surround or enclose (something) in order to protect it
The carpenter built casing to house the hot water pipes.
SYNONYM STUDY FOR HOUSE
1. House, dwelling, residence, home are terms applied to a place to live in. Dwelling is now chiefly poetic, or used in legal or technical contexts, as in a lease or in the phrase multiple dwelling. Residence is characteristic of formal usage and often implies size and elegance of structure and surroundings: the private residence of the king. These two terms and house have always had reference to the structure to be lived in. Home has recently taken on this meaning and become practically equivalent to house, the new meaning tending to crowd out the older connotations of family ties and domestic comfort. See also hotel.
Explanation:
