Etymologically
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housing

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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.

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)