An extensive vocabulary exists to describe all the possible variations in the structures in which humans live. This list, which omits most terms of foreign origin and includes temporary and mobile living spaces, includes definitions of many such words to help writers distinguish between them:
1. Abode: Any living space; often used jocularly in a mock-formal tone.
2. Apartment: A living space consisting of one or more rooms in a building or a building complex with at least a few such units.
3. Billet: Quarters in a private home assigned to a member of the military order by an official order (also called a billet), or, informally, living quarters.
4. Boardinghouse: A house that provides room and board (a private or shared room and meals).
5. Bungalow: A small one- or one-and-a-half-story house.
6. Cabin: Originally, a small, crudely constructed one-story dwelling; now, often refers to a vacation home that may be quite large and complex.
7. Caravan: A British English synonym for trailer (see below), in an extension of the sense of a file of vehicles, based on the original meaning of a train of pack animals.
8. Casita: A small house.
9. Castle: Originally, a fortified structure that often served as a dwelling for a nobleman and his family and retainers, now used figuratively for a large, imposing house.
10. Chalet: A characteristic type of house in Switzerland, by extension any similar house; also refers to an Alpine herdsman’s hut.
11. Chateau: A large rural house; also refers to a wine-country estate.
12. Condominium: A unit in an apartment building or a town house complex that is individually owned rather than rented.
13. Cottage: Originally, a small country house (though some cottages were and are not necessarily small), either for vacation use or permanent residence.
14. Countryseat: A country house.
15-16. Digs/diggings: Originally slang referring to student lodgings, now informally referring to any living space.
17. Domicile: A formal term for any place of residence.
18. Double-wide: A mobile home (see below) twice the standard width of a trailer.
19. Duplex: A building with living spaces for two separate residents or groups of residents.
20. Dwelling: A place where one lives.
21. Estate: A piece of land, generally with a large house on it.
22. Farmhouse: A house on a current or onetime farm.
23. Flat: A one-floor apartment.
24. Grange: A farmhouse, but generally refers to the farm itself rather than the living space.
25. Habitation: A living space.
26. Hacienda: A large estate or plantation (see below).
27. Hall: A castle (see above); later, a manor house (see below).
28. Hermitage: A residence or vacation home in a secluded place.
29. Home: A place where one lives, though it also has a qualitative association of the domestic dynamics as opposed to the structure in which people live.
30. Homestead: A home and its adjoining land; also, in the United States, specifically a plot of 160 acres.
31-32. Hooch/hootch: See hut, below.
33. House: A place where one lives, as distinguished from a multiunit building.
34. House trailer: A trailer large enough to serve as a permanent living space, rather than one designed for travel.
35. Houseboat: A boat designed with a superstructure similar to that of a small house, as opposed to a cabin cruiser, which has an interior set into the hull. Some houseboats are navigable, while others are merely floating houses. (Interesting side note: Houseboats are nothing new; the word goes back more than 200 years.)
36. Hovel: A small, often poorly built and squalid house.
37-38. Hut/hutment: A small, simply constructed, and perhaps temporary living space; the latter word may also refer to a collection of huts.
39. Hutch: See hut, above.
40. Lodgement: A place for accommodations.
41. Lodgings: One or more rooms rented as a living space.
42. Lodging house: A house or other building providing living spaces.
43. Manufactured home: See “mobile home,” below.
44-45. Manor: The house or hall of an estate; also refers to the estate itself; also called a manor house.
46. Manse: A Presbyterian minister’s house provided by a church; also a secular synonym for mansion (see below).
47. Mansion: A large, opulent house.
48. McMansion: A pejorative slang term for a generically unattractive, ostentatious large house.
49. Mobile home: A trailer intended as a permanent, fixed living space.
50. Modular home: A house assembled in sections in a factory and assembled on
the building site.
51. Motor home: A large vehicle designed as living quarters; not to be confused with a mobile home (see above).
52. Pad: Living quarters.
53. Palace: A large, elegant house; also, the residence of a monarch or a government leader, and in British English an archbishop or bishop’s official residence.
54. Parsonage: A pastor’s house provided by a church.
55-56. Pension: Hotel or boardinghouse accommodations on the European continent; a building for such purposes is called a pensione.
57. Penthouse: A rooftop structure or living space; also, a shed or an annex.
58. Plantation: An agricultural estate, though the term may refer to the main house on the property.
59. Prefabricated home: See “modular home,” above.
60. Quarters: One or more areas set aside as living space.
61. Railroad flat: An apartment having a series of rooms arranged in a line.
62. Ranch house: A one-story house typically with a low-pitched roof.
63. Recreational vehicle: See “motor home,” above.
64. Rectory: A rector or parish priest’s house provided by a church.
65. Residence: Any living space.
66. Rooming house: A house where accommodations are available for rent.
67. Saltbox: A house with a long, rear-sloping roof in back that provides room for two stories in front but only one in back.
68. Shack: See hut, above.
69. Shanty: See hut, above.
70-72. Shotgun house: A house in which the rooms are arranged in a line; also called a shotgun cottage or shotgun shack.
73. Split level: A house with separate levels set off from each other.
74. Suite: A living space consisting of a set of rooms.
75-76. Tenement: Broadly, any living space, but in practical usage an apartment building of low-quality construction; also called a tenement house.
77-79. Town house: A two- or three-story house often connected to one or more similar living spaces; also called a row house or a townhome. The term also can refer to a house in town, especially a city residence of a household that lives primarily in a house in the country.
80. Tract house: One of a collection of similar-looking houses built a particular tract, or plot, of land.
81. Trailer: A mobile structure designed to be towed by a vehicle and used as a temporary living space.
82. Triplex: A building with living spaces for three separate residents or groups of residents.
83. Vicarage: A house for a vicar provided by a church.
84. Villa: A large rural or suburban house; also, in British English, an urban house with a yard that may be connected to other identical living spaces.
85. Walk-up: A multistory apartment building with no elevator, or an apartment in the structure.
Awesome ….I am not aware of many from this.
Thanks a lot for increasing my knowledge concern to this.
48. McMansion: A pejorative slang term for a generically unattractive, ostentatious large house.
I’ve always heard this one to be: The houses of s subdivision that all look very similar in build and are mass produced. These homes lack individuality as they are all built with nearly identical floor plans.
Very often we discuss about our house. Here the writer has mentioned 85 synonym of house. Certainly this is a great article and a source of synonyms.
Flop.
Crib.
Teepee.
Hogan.
Maisonette?
I can’t help but notice you’re missing one crucial synonym: Hugh Laurie.
Sorry, I couldn’t help myself! Thank you for the list, they’re always helpful.
I have another one. Crib.
Great list… Isn’t the English lanaguage fascinating?
The names of regional/country related homes are interesting too such as igloo, finca, gite, mas, trulli, stancija, podere.
Dacha!
Squat
Pied-a-terre
A-frame – You can’t leave this out. So many evocative, uniquely American associations – i. e. The Brady Bunch.
You also forgot “Brownstone” and “Co-Op”
In Scotland, a tenement may be an “apartment building of low-quality construction” but would more often not be one. In other words, many people are more than happy to live in one particularly if it has Art Nouveau features like many do in some parts of Glasgow.
Here in Maine we have “camp”, generally seasonal but otherwise approximately a cabin as listed.
In New Zealand our holiday home is called a Bach in the North Island and in the South Island it is called a Crib.
I believe none of these words actually mean house!!! I have to pee. I have to finish muy papir and none of these words acturally meen house. I believe none of these words actually mean house!!! I was wondering if youcoud make a change to ur site. In New Zealand our holiday home is called a Bach in the North Island and in the south island it is called a crib. Here in Maine we have “camp”. generally seasonal but otherwise approximately a cabin as listed.
Let’s include yurt.