home

From Middle English hōm, from Old English hām, from Proto-West Germanic *haim, from Proto-Germanic *haimaz (“home, village”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱóymos (“village, home”), from the root *tḱey-. Doublet of heyem.

• (UK) enPR: hōm, IPA^(key): /həʊm/

  • Audio (UK):

    (file)

• (US) enPR: hōm, IPA^(key): /hoʊm/

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

• (Canada) IPA^(key): [hoːm]
• Homophones: Home, hom, holm, heaume, holme
• Rhymes: -əʊm

home (plural homes)

1. A dwelling.
   1. One’s own dwelling place; the house or structure in which one lives; especially the house in which one lives with one's family; the habitual abode of one’s family.
      • 1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], →OCLC, John xx:[10], folio clj, recto:

        And the diſciples went awaye agayne vnto their awne home.

      • 1808, John Dryden, edited by Walter Scott, The Works of John Dryden:

        Thither for ease and soft repose we come: / Home is the sacred refuge of our life; / Secured from all approaches, but a wife.

      • 1822, John Howard Payne, Home! Sweet Home!:

        Home! home! sweet, sweet home! / There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.

      • 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 132:

        If we now say that "woman's place is in the home," it is not because men put her there, but because the home became the capitol of women's mysteries.

      • 2013 June 29, “High and wet”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, page 28:

        Rock-filled torrents smashed vehicles and homes, burying victims under rubble and sludge.

   2. The place (residence, settlement, country, etc.), where a person was born and/or raised; childhood or parental home; home of one’s parents or guardian.
      • 2004, Jean Harrison, Home:

        The rights listed in the UNCRC cover all areas of children's lives such as their right to have a home and their right to be educated.

      Does she still live at home? - No, she moved out and got an apartment when she was 18, but she still lives in the city.

   3. The abiding place of the affections, especially of the domestic affections.
      • 1821, George Gordon Byron, Don Juan‎^[1], canto III:

        He enter’d in the house—his home no more, / For without hearts there is no home; […]

   4. A house that has been made home-like, to suit the comfort of those who live there.

      It's what you bring into a house that makes it a home

   5. A place of refuge, rest or care; an asylum.

      a home for outcasts

      a home for the blind

      a veterans' home

      Instead of a pet store, get your new dog from the local dogs’ home.

   6. (by extension) The grave; the final rest; also, the native and eternal dwelling place of the soul.
      • 1769, King James Bible, Oxford Standard text, Ecclesiastes 12:5:

        […] because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets: […]

   7. (by extension) Anything that serves the functions of a home, as comfort, safety, sense of belonging, etc.
      • 2007 January 10, Leslie Feinberg, “1976 WWP pamphlet found answers in Marxism”, in Workers World‎^[2]:

        The rights of modern transsexual women and men to live in the sex that is "home".

2. One’s native land; the place or country in which one dwells; the place where one’s ancestors dwell or dwelt.
   • 1863, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Our Old Home: A Series of English Sketches‎^[3]:

     Visiting these famous localities, and a great many others, I hope that I do not compromise my American patriotism by acknowledging that I was often conscious of a fervent hereditary attachment to the native soil of our forefathers, and felt it to be our own Old Home.

   • 1889, Rudyard Kipling, “The Hill of Illusion”, in Under the Deodars, Boston: The Greenock Press, published 1899, page 93:

     Have you any people at Home, Guy, to be pleased with your performances?

   • 1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter IV, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:

     So this was my future home, I thought! Certainly it made a brave picture. I had seen similar ones fired-in on many a Heidelberg stein. Backed by towering hills, […] a sky of palest Gobelin flecked with fat, fleecy little clouds, it in truth looked a dear little city; the city of one's dreams.

   • 1980, Peter Allen, song, I Still Call Australia Home:

     I've been to cities that never close down / From New York to Rio and old London town / But no matter how far or how wide I roam / I still call Australia home.

3. The locality where a thing is usually found, or was first found, or where it is naturally abundant; habitat; seat.

   the home of the pine

   • 1706, Matthew Prior, An Ode, Humbly Inscribed to the Queen, on the ẛucceẛs of Her Majeẛty's Arms, 1706, as republished in 1795, Robert Anderson (editor), The Works of the British Poets:

     […] Flandria, by plenty made the home of war, / Shall weep her crime, and bow to Charles r'estor'd, […]

   • 1849, Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam A. H. H.:

     Her eyes are homes of silent prayer, / Nor other thought her mind admits / But, he was dead, and there he sits, / And he that brought him back is there.

   • 2013 September 7, “Nodding acquaintance”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8852:

     Africa is home to so many premier-league diseases (such as AIDS, childhood diarrhoea, malaria and tuberculosis) that those in lower divisions are easily ignored.

4. A focus point.
   1. (board games) The ultimate point aimed at in a progress; the goal.

      The object of Sorry! is to get all four of your pawns to your home.

   2. (baseball) Home plate.
   3. (lacrosse) The place of a player in front of an opponent’s goal; also, the player.
   4. (Internet) The landing page of a website; the site's homepage.
   5. (music, informal) The chord at which a melody starts and to which it can resolve.
5. (computing) Clipping of home directory.

• (one’s own dwelling place): tenement, house, dwelling, abode, domicile, residence
• ((baseball) home plate): home base

home (third-person singular simple present homes, present participle homing, simple past and past participle homed)

1. (of animals, transitive) To return to its owner.

   The dog homed.

home (not comparable)

1. Of, from, or pertaining to one’s dwelling or country; domestic; not foreign. [from 13th c.]

   home manufactures

   home comforts

2. (now rare, except in phrases) That strikes home; direct, pointed. [from 17th c.]

   a home truth

3. (obsolete) Personal, intimate. [17th–19th c.]
   • 1778, Frances Burney, Journals & Letters, Penguin, published 2001, page 91:

     I hardly knew what I answered him, but, by degrees I tranquillised, as I found he forbore distressing me any further, by such Home strokes […].

4. (sports) Relating to the home team (the team at whose venue a game is played). [from 19th c.]

   Antonyms: away, road, visitor

   the home end, home advantage, home supporters

home (not comparable)

1. To one's home.
   1. To one's place of residence or one's customary or official location.

      go home

      come home

      carry someone home

      • 1863, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Our Old Home: A Series of English Sketches‎^[4]:

        He made no complaint of his ill-fortune, but only repeated in a quiet voice, with a pathos of which he was himself evidently unconscious, "I want to get home to Ninety-second Street, Philadelphia."

      • 1892, Walter Besant, “Prologue: Who is Edmund Gray?”, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC, page 16:

        Athelstan Arundel walked home all the way, foaming and raging. No omnibus, cab, or conveyance ever built could contain a young man in such a rage. His mother lived at Pembridge Square, which is four good measured miles from Lincoln's Inn.

   2. To one's place of birth.
   3. To the place where it belongs; to the end of a course; to the full length.

      She drove the nail home

      ram a cartridge home

      • c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]:

        Wear thy good rapier bare, and put it home: […]

      • 1988, Roald Dahl, Matilda:

        Eventually she managed to slide the lid of the pencil-box right home and the newt was hers. Then, on second thoughts, she opened the lid just the tiniest fraction so that the creature could breathe.

   4. (Internet) To the home page.

      Click here to go home.

2. At or in one's place of residence or one's customary or official location; at home.
   • 1975-1976, Lou Sullivan, personal diary, quoted in 2019, Ellis Martin, Zach Ozma (editors), We Both Laughed In Pleasure

     I'm certainly not the type to sit home waiting up for hubbie every night.

3. To a full and intimate degree; to the heart of the matter; fully, directly.
   • 1625, Francis Bacon, dedication to the Duke of Buckingham, in Essays Civil and Moral,

     I do now publish my Essays; which of all my other works have been most current : for that, as it seems, they come home to men's business and bosoms.

   • 1692–1717, Robert South, Twelve Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London:

     How home the charge reaches us, has been made out by ẛhewing with what high impudence ẛome amongẛt us defend sin, […]

   • 1748, [Samuel Richardson], “Letter LXVII”, in Clarissa. Or, The History of a Young Lady: […], volume (please specify |volume=I to VII), London: […] S[amuel] Richardson;  […], →OCLC:

     Her treatment of you, you say, does no credit either to her education or fine sense. Very home put, truly!

4. (UK, soccer) into the goal
   • 2004, Tottenham 4-4 Leicester, BBC Sport: February,

     Walker was penalised for a picking up a Gerry Taggart backpass and from the resulting free-kick, Keane fired home after Johnnie Jackson's initial effort was blocked.

5. (nautical) into the right, proper or stowed position

   sails sheeted home

• home is often used in the formation of compound words, many of which need no special definition; as, home-brewed, home-built, home-grown, etc.

• (to home): homeward

• “home”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• home in Keywords for Today: A 21st Century Vocabulary, edited by The Keywords Project, Colin MacCabe, Holly Yanacek, 2018.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “home”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

• home on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• Mohe, hemo-

• hombre
• huome (chiefly as an interjection)

From Latin homō, hominem, from Proto-Italic *hemō, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰm̥mṓ.

• IPA^(key): /ˈome/ [ˈo.me]
• Rhymes: -ome
• Syllabification: ho‧me

home m (plural homes)

1. man

   L'home equí ye'l fíu María. ― This man here is María's son.

2. person
3. husband

• (person): persona
• (husband): esposu, maríu

• home del sacu
• ho

• Xosé Lluis García Arias (2002–2004), “home”, in Diccionario general de la lengua asturiana [General Dictionary of the Asturian Language] (in Spanish), Editorial Prensa Asturiana, →ISBN
• “home”, in Diccionariu de la llingua asturiana [Dictionary of the Asturian Language] (in Asturian), 1ª edición, Academia de la Llingua Asturiana, 2000, →ISBN

Inherited from Old Catalan home~hom, from Latin hominem (“human”, noun).

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic) [ˈɔ.mə]
• IPA^(key): (Valencia) [ˈɔ.me]

• Audio (Valencia):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔme
• Hyphenation: ho‧me

home m (plural homes or hòmens)

1. man
2. husband

   Synonyms: cònjuge, espòs, marit

home

1. A term of address for a man conveying annoyance, impatience, surprise, disagreement, etc.

   Home, no sigues bèstia! ― Dude, don't be stupid!

• “home”, in Diccionari de la llengua catalana [Dictionary of the Catalan Language] (in Catalan), second edition, Institute of Catalan Studies [Catalan: Institut d'Estudis Catalans], April 2007
• “home”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2025
• “home” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “home” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

ho̊me

1. (Codex Magliabechiano) obsolete spelling of ōme

From homo.

• IPA^(key): /ˈhome/
• Rhymes: -ome
• Hyphenation: ho‧me

home

1. humanly; in a human fashion

From Proto-Finnic *homëh, from earlier *šomeš, borrowed from Proto-Germanic *swammaz or earlier Pre-Germanic. Cognate to Karelian homeh, Veps homeh.

• IPA^(key): /ˈhomeˣ/, [ˈho̞me̞(ʔ)]
• Rhymes: -ome
• Syllabification^(key): ho‧me
• Hyphenation^(key): ho‧me

home

1. mildew, mold

   Tämä leipä on homeessa.

   This bread is moldy

   (literally, “This bread is in mold.”)

• “home”, in Kielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish]‎^[5] (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki: Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland), 2004–, retrieved 2 July 2023

• hemo

• homem (reintegrationist)

From Old Galician-Portuguese ome, omẽe, from Latin homō, hominem, from Proto-Italic *hemō, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰm̥mṓ.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɔme/ [ˈɔ.mɪ]

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔme
• Hyphenation: ho‧me

home m (plural homes)

1. human; person

   Unha sebe tres anos dura; un can tres sebes; unha mula tres cans; un home tres mulas (proverb)

   A hedge lasts three years; a dog three hedges; a mule three dogs; a person three mules

2. mankind

   O home chegou á Lúa en 1969 ― Mankind arrived to the Moon in 1969

3. man (adult male)

   Home casado muller é (proverb) ― The Married man is a woman

4. male human

   Home pequeno fol de veleno (proverb) ― Small man, skin [bag] of venom

5. husband

   Éste é o meu home, Xaquín ― This is my husband, Joachim

• Home is a false friend and does not mean home. The Galician word for home is lar.

• homiño (“little man”)
• lobishome (“werewolf”)
• ricohome (“magnate”)

home

1. man! (expresses surprise, or mild annoyance)

   -Es o campión do mundo? Contento? -Home!... ― -You're the champion of the world? Are you happy? -Man!... [Of course I'm happy, what kind of question is this?]

• ho

• persoa

• Seoane, Ernesto Xosé González; Granja, María Álvarez de la; Agrelo, Ana Isabel Boullón (2006–2022), “home”, in Dicionario de Dicionarios do galego medieval [Dictionary of dictionaries of Medieval Galician] (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
• Barreiro, Xavier Varela; Guinovart, Xavier Gómez (2006–2018), “home”, in Corpus Xelmírez: corpus lingüístico da Galicia medieval [Corpus Xelmírez: linguistic corpus of Medieval Galicia] (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
• Antón Luís Santamarina Fernández, editor (2006–2013), “home”, in Dicionario de Dicionarios da lingua galega [Dictionary of Dictionaries of the Galician language] (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
• Antón Luís Santamarina Fernández, Ernesto Xosé González Seoane, María Álvarez de la Granja, editors (2003–2018), “home”, in Tesouro informatizado da lingua galega (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
• Rosario Álvarez Blanco, editor (2014–2024), “home”, in Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega, →ISSN
• “home”, in Dicionário Estraviz de galego (in Galician), 2014–2025

From Proto-Finnic *homëh. Cognates include Finnish home and Veps homeh.

• (Ala-Laukaa) IPA^(key): /ˈhome/, [ˈho̞me̞]
• (Soikkola) IPA^(key): /ˈhome/, [ˈho̞me̞]
• (Hevaha) IPA^(key): /ˈhomeh/, [ˈho̞me̞h]
• Rhymes: -ome
• Hyphenation: ho‧me

home

1. mould

Declension of home (type 6/lähe, no gradation, gemination)
	singular	plural
nominative	home	hommeet
genitive	hommeen	hommein
partitive	hometta	hommeita
illative	hommeesse	hommeisse
inessive	hommees	hommeis
elative	hommeest	hommeist
allative	hommeelle	hommeille
adessive	hommeel	hommeil
ablative	hommeelt	hommeilt
translative	hommeeks	hommeiks
essive	hommeenna, hommeen	hommeinna, hommein
exessive1)	hommeent	hommeint
1) obsolete *) the accusative corresponds with either the genitive (sg) or nominative (pl) **) the comitative is formed by adding the suffix -ka? or -kä? to the genitive.

• Ruben E. Nirvi (1971), Inkeroismurteiden Sanakirja, Helsinki: Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura, page 67
• Arvo Laanest (1997), Isuri keele Hevaha murde sõnastik, Eesti Keele Instituut, page 37

Borrowed from English home.

• IPA^(key): /ˈom/, (careful style) /ˈowm/^[1][2]
• Rhymes: -om, (careful style) -owm

home f (invariable)

1. (computing) home (initial position of various computing objects)

• ohmè

From Latin homō, hominem, from Proto-Italic *hemō, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰm̥mṓ.

home m (plural homes)

1. man

• “home”, in Diccionario Castellano-Leonés / Leonés-Castellano [Spanish-Leonese / Leonese-Spanish Dictionary] (in Spanish), La Asociación L'Alderique, 2012–2025

• hóme, hómi

From Portuguese home, denasalized variant of homem.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɔme/, /ˈɔmi/

home (plural home-home)

1. man

   home-home di hoze ― men nowadays

• mulé

• https://www.macaneselibrary.org/pub/english/uipatua.htm

home

1. alternative form of hom (“home”)

home

1. alternative form of whom (“whom”)

home

1. alternative form of hem (“them”)

home

1. alternative form of hamme (“enclosure; meadow”)

home

1. alternative form of hame (“hame (part of a harness)”)

home

1. alternative form of hummen (“to hum”)

From Latin homō, hominem, from Proto-Italic *hemō, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰm̥mṓ.

home m (plural homes)

1. man
2. husband

• mulhier

home (present tense homar, past tense homa, past participle homa, passive infinitive homast, present participle homande, imperative home/hom)

1. alternative form of homa (non-standard since 2012)

see hom for alternative nominative singular forms

From Vulgar Latin *(h)omne, Latin hominem, accusative singular of homō. The nominative form hom, om, on, hon derives from the Latin nominative homō.

• IPA^(key): /ˈu.mə/

home oblique singular, m (oblique plural homes, nominative singular hom, nominative plural home)

1. man (male adult human being)
2. man (mankind; Homo sapiens)
   • c. 1120, Philippe de Taon, Bestiaire, line 476:

     O HOM de sancte vie, entent que signefie

     O MAN of sacred life, listen to what this means

3. vassal; manservant

• fame (“woman”)

• Middle French: homme
  • French: homme, Homme (Man, genus Homo)
    • Haitian Creole: lòm
    • Karipúna Creole French: uóm
    • Louisiana Creole: n'homme
    • Saint Dominican Creole French: n'homme
      • Haitian Creole: nonm
    • →⇒ English: en homme
  • French: on, l'on (formal)
    • → Esperanto: oni
      • → Ido: onu
• Norman: houme (France), haomme (Guernsey), houmme (Jersey)
• Picard: onme
• Walloon: ome

• Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IX^e au XV^e siècle (1881) (homme)
• Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IX^e au XV^e siècle (1881) (homme, supplement)
• home on the Anglo-Norman On-Line Hub
• Walther von Wartburg (1928–2002), “homo”, in Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, volume 4: G H I, page 455 (contains a reference to the nominative singular forms hom, huem and om)

home m (plural homes)

1. alternative form of ome

home m (oblique plural homes, nominative singular hom, nominative plural home)

1. alternative form of ome

Denasalization of homem.

• Rhymes: (Portugal) -ɔmɨ, (Brazil) -õmi
• Hyphenation: ho‧me

home m (plural homes)

1. (nonstandard) alternative form of homem