A house is a home, building or structure the primary function of which is to be occupied for habitation by humans or other creatures. The term house includes many kinds of dwellings ranging from rudimentary huts of nomadic tribes to complex structures composed of many systems. English-speaking people generally call any building they routinely occupy "home".
The social unit that lives in a house is known as a household. Most commonly, a household is a family unit of some kind, though households may be other social groups, organizations or individuals.
Read more about House: Etymology, Construction, Found Materials, Identifying Houses, Animal Houses, Houses and Symbolism
Famous quotes containing the word house:
“What is the use of a house if you have n’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?—if you cannot tolerate the planet it is on?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The wheels and springs of man are all set to the hypothesis of the permanence of nature. We are not built like a ship to be tossed, but like a house to stand.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“To have no son, no wife,
No house or land still seemed quite natural.
Only a numbness registered the shock
Of finding out how much had gone of life,
How widely from the others.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)