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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

housing.

The activity of enclosing something or providing a residence for someone.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈhaʊzɪŋ//ˈhaʊsɪŋ/
  1. The activity of enclosing something or providing a residence for someone.

    uncountable
    Housing of homeless families is a priority.
  2. Residences, collectively.

    uncountable
    She lives in low-income housing.
  3. A mechanical component's container or covering.

    countable
    The gears were grinding against their housing.
  4. A cover or cloth for a horse's saddle, as an ornamental or military appendage; a saddlecloth; a horse cloth; in plural, trappings.

    countable · uncountable
  5. An appendage to the harness or collar of a harness.

    countable · uncountable
  6. The space taken out of one solid to admit the insertion of part of another, such as the end of one timber in the side of another.

    countable · uncountable
  7. A niche for a statue.

    countable · uncountable
  8. That portion of a mast or bowsprit which is beneath the deck or within the vessel.

    countable · uncountable
  9. A houseline.

    countable · uncountable
Where this word comes from

From Middle English housynge, housinge, from housen (“to house, shelter; receive into one's house”), equivalent to house + -ing. Cognate with Scots housing (“housing”), Old Frisian hūsinge (whence Saterland Frisian Huzenge); compare also Dutch huizing, behuizing (“housing”), Low German husing, hüsing (“housing”), German Behausung (“housing”), Swedish inhysing (“housing”).

verb/ˈhaʊzɪŋ//ˈhaʊsɪŋ/
  1. present participle and gerund of house

    form-of · gerund · participle · present
    We are housing the company's servers in Florida.
Where this word comes from

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.