housekeeping

Etymology

It is formed from English house + keeping,^[2][3][4][5] after the phrase “to keep house”.^[2] Etymonline suggests that it may be a back-formation from housekeeper,^[6] which is recorded earlier, from before 1425.^[2] The OED also compares the earlier householding.^[2] The adjective is formed from house and keeping, the present participle of keep.^[3][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The maintenance of a household, or the owning of a house: 1529, in Simon Fish's translation of Bomelius's Summe of Holye Scripture.^[2] Merriam-Webster dates the sense "management of domestic affairs" to the same year,^[4] while Etymonline dates the word to the 1540s^[6] and Dictionary.com to 1530–40.^[5]

Semantic evolution

In the 16th century housekeeping also meant hospitality, the providing of food and drink for guests, from 1538 in Latimer;^[2] Johnson (1755) defined the noun as "hospitality; liberal and plentiful table", quoting Shakespeare's "sworn out housekeeping", and the adjective as "domestick; useful to a family".^[7] The sense of running a household's everyday tasks, such as cooking and cleaning, is recorded from 1652.^[2] In North America to set up housekeeping is to set up house or live in one's own home.^[2][3] From 1839, in Thackeray, housekeeping was also the money set aside for running a household.^[2][8] In the 20th century the word was extended to keeping any system in good order: the management of an organization's affairs, often its finances (1940),^[2][3] the routine operations of a computer that support its work (1956),^[2][8] the basic processes every living cell needs (1964),^[2] and the department of a hotel or hospital that does cleaning and maintenance (1968).^[2] The verb housekeep is a back-formation from it, recorded from 1813 in the OED;^[2][5] Etymonline dates it to 1842.^[6]

Timeline

• 1529 – the maintenance of a household.^[2][4]
• 1538 – hospitality to guests.^[2]
• 1552 – adjective, keeping a house or doing household tasks.^[2]
• 1652 – running a household's everyday tasks.^[2]
• 1839 – money for running a household.^[2]
• 1940 – keeping an organization or system in good order.^[2]
• 1956 – routine operations of a computer.^[2]
• 1964 – in cell biology, the basic processes of all cells.^[2]
• 1968 – the cleaning department of a hotel or hospital.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The running of a household; the management of domestic affairs, such as cleaning and cooking: They shared the housekeeping when they moved in together.^[8][4][2]
2. (chiefly British) Money set aside for running a household.^[8][2]
3. The routine work of keeping an organization, office or system in good order, often with regard to its finances.^[4][8][2]
4. (computing) The routine maintenance of a computer system, such as deleting old files and making backups.^[8][2]
5. The department of a hotel or hospital that does the cleaning, or its staff: Call housekeeping for more towels.^[2]
6. (biology) The basic processes, such as making proteins, that every cell needs to function.^[2]
7. (archaic) The state of occupying a house as a householder.^[4][2]

Word family

• housekeep

Related words

• housekeeper
• householding
• householder

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
8. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins