Categories: American vs British English Vocabulary

House and Home: Are they different?

House and Home: What's the difference?

House and home are often used interchangeably by most people thinking they are the same. Technically, these words are the same. In fact, they refer to something where people stay. However, their use can vary depending on what the speaker would want to mean.

When you point out to a building and say it’s your house, you mean the physical building; whereas when you say it is your home, you mean it is the place where your family lives. Explicitly, a house is just a structure whilst the home is a place where the family lives in love and harmony.

What is a house?

We use the word house to talk about a building made for people or a family to live in. A house is actually the concrete physical building where a person or people live in.

For example:

The nipa hut is a very popular traditional house in the Philippines.

The white house on York Avenue is mine.

We have a new house in Cebu.

There are only five houses on our street.

I want to build a beautiful house by the sea.

What is a home?

While we use the house to refer to the physical building, we use the word home can refer either to a building or to any location that a person thinks of as the place where she lives and that belongs to her. A home can be a house or an apartment, but it could also be a tent, a boat, or an underground cave.

A home is not just a concrete building. It is a place for the family filled with love, bonding, and affection. Every member of the family care for each other in a home.

Moreover, we can also use home to talk about the family living in a house, or the familiar space inside a person’s house, or the place someone was born or lived as a child.

The word home can also refer to something abstract. For example, we someone says, “Let’s go home,” the person may not probably refer to the physical structure where he lives. But he may refer to the special place where you feel the most comfortable place where you belong.

For example:

She feels at ease in their home.

That song reminds me of my home.

How does it feel to be back home?

I’d rather stay at home than go out.

Conclusion

Just like very and too, house and home are just some of the words which we think are the same when technically they’re not. And although these have almost similar in meaning, knowing its deeper meaning is important. Clearly, each word has its own unique definition as the latter has something to do with love, affection, etc.

In order to avoid mixing these words next time, let us always remember THIS.

A house is a building in which a person or a family lives.

A home is a house or apartment where a person or a family lives in peace, love, harmony, and affection.

Flor