housing

English has two words spelled housing: houses and shelter, from house, and an ornamental covering for a horse, from Old French houce.^[1][2]

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈhaʊ.zɪŋ/^[3]

housing¹ dwellings

Etymology

The dwellings sense is inherited from Middle English housinge, earlier husing,^[1][2] formed from house and -ing, partly as a noun of action from the verb housen “to house”.^[1][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Shelter, house accommodation, lodging: before 1300 in the OED,^[5] the early 14th century in Etymonline,^[2] and before 1325 in Cursor Mundi in Barnhart.^[1]

Semantic evolution

Houses or buildings collectively are from about 1400,^[5] and a single house or building from 1399.^[5] In architecture, a canopied niche for a statue is from 1463.^[5] The action of housing, putting into a house, is from 1377.^[5] A case or enclosure for a machine or part is recorded by 1882,^[1][2] and Barnhart thinks this sense may have merged with the horse covering.^[1] The provision of homes as public policy, as in housing estate, is a modern use.^[6][3]

Timeline

• before 1300 – shelter, lodging.^[5]
• 1377 – the act of housing.^[5]
• 1399 – a house or building.^[5]
• 1463 – a niche for a statue.^[5]
• 1882 – a case for a machine.^[1][2]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. Houses and flats considered collectively.
2. The provision of places to live.
3. A frame, case or box enclosing a machine or part.
4. A groove cut in a piece of wood to receive another part.

housing² horse covering

Etymology

The covering is an extension of earlier inherited from Middle English houce, house,^[1][2] borrowed from Old French houce (“mantle, horse blanket”),^[2][1][7] from Medieval Latin hultia (“protective covering”),^[2][1] from Frankish *hulfti,^[1][2] from Proto-Indo-European *kel- (“to cover, conceal”).^[2] It is cognate with Middle Dutch hulfte “quiver” and Middle High German hulft “covering”.^[1][2] The modern French word is housse.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Middle English houce, a covering for a horse's back and flanks, from 1312–13^[1] (about 1300 in Etymonline).^[2] Housing, a covering, especially of cloth, is from about 1400.^[5]

Semantic evolution

A cloth covering put on a horse for protection or ornament is from 1645,^[5] and the singular housing of a horse's covering is in John Adams's diary in 1782, in American English.^[1] The plural housings is often used for horse trappings.^[5][6]

Timeline

• 1312–13 – houce, a horse covering.^[1]
• c. 1400 – a covering.^[5]
• 1645 – a horse cloth.^[5]
• 1782 – the singular, in John Adams.^[1]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. An ornamental or protective covering for a horse or its saddle.
2. housings: the trappings of a horse.

Related words

• house
• hull
• hell
• hall

Usage notes

In the dialects of northern England and Cheshire housing also meant a set of buildings, especially those of a farm.^[8]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
4. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
7. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)