Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A place where one lives; a residence.
  • noun The physical structure within which one lives, such as a house or apartment.
  • noun A dwelling place together with the family or social unit that occupies it; a household.
  • noun An environment offering security and happiness.
  • noun A valued place regarded as a refuge or place of origin.
  • noun The place, such as a country or town, where one was born or has lived for a long period.
  • noun The native habitat, as of a plant or animal.
  • noun The place where something is discovered, founded, developed, or promoted; a source.
  • noun A headquarters; a home base.
  • noun Baseball Home plate.
  • noun Games Home base.
  • noun An institution where people are cared for.
  • noun The starting position of the cursor on a text-based computer display, usually in the upper left corner of the screen.
  • noun A starting position within a computer application, such as the beginning of a line, file, or screen or the top of a chart or list.
  • adjective Of or relating to a home, especially to one's household or house.
  • adjective Taking place in the home.
  • adjective Of, relating to, or being a place of origin or headquarters.
  • adjective Sports Relating to a team's sponsoring institution or to the place where it is franchised.
  • adjective Of, relating to, or being the keys used as base positions for the fingers in touch-typing.
  • adverb At, to, or toward the direction of home.
  • adverb On or into the point at which something is directed.
  • adverb To the center or heart of something; deeply.
  • intransitive verb To go or return to one's residence or base of operations.
  • intransitive verb To move or advance toward a target or goal.
  • intransitive verb To focus the attention or make progress achieving an objective.
  • intransitive verb To guide (a missile or aircraft) to a target.
  • intransitive verb To arrange to have (an animal) placed in a home.
  • intransitive verb To take (an animal) into one's home.
  • idiom (at home) Available to receive visitors.
  • idiom (at home) Comfortable and relaxed; at ease.
  • idiom (at home) Feeling an easy competence and familiarity.
  • idiom (home free) Out of jeopardy; assured of success.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To, toward, or at home, in any sense of that word.
  • To the point; to the mark aimed at; so as to produce an intended effect; effectively; satisfactorily; closely: as, to strike home; to charge home; to speak home.
  • To dwell; have a home; also (chiefly in the present participle), to go home instinctively, as a carrier-pigeon. See homing.
  • To bring, carry, or send home: as, the homing of the harvest; to home a carrier-pigeon.
  • noun A dwelling; the residence of a family or household; a seat of domestic life and interests; hence, one's abode; the house in which one has his fixed or usual residence, or which he regards as his definite dwelling-place.
  • noun The place or region in which one lives; one's own locality or country.
  • noun The place or region where some specified thing is most common, indigenous, or native; the seat or native habitat.
  • noun An institute or establishment designed to afford the comforts of domestic life to the homeless, sick, or destitute: as, a sailors’ or soldiers’ home; a home for the aged.
  • noun In games, the ultimate point to which a player runs, or to which effort is directed; the goal.
  • noun Specifically— In base-ball, the space or base immediately in front of the batters’ position. See base-ball.
  • noun In lacrosse, the position of a player who stands just in front of his opponents’ goal, and who tries to throw the ball through it; also, the player himself.
  • noun In the position of being thoroughly familiar with a subject; conversant: as, to be at home in a science.
  • noun In one's own country.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old English hām; see tkei- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English home, hom, hoom, ham, from Old English hām ("village, hamlet, manor, estate, home, dwelling, house, region, country"), from Proto-Germanic *haimaz (“home, village”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱóymos (“village, home”).

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Examples

  • I think it was supposed to say "Best @home," meaning Melissa could win the at-home prize for losing the most weight.

    The Teacher Tearjerker 2010

  • In any case, the fun part was not being at home& not knowing what time we'd get home.

    Young Skin 2009

  • Also, because I teach preschool we have 2 weeks at the beginning of the school year which everyone thinks is so lucky because we start later than the rest of the district…but really those days are full of meetings and mass screening and home visits…..home visits….yuck!

    10 Reasons Why I Heart Teacher Workdays « Classroom Confessions 2009

  • Contractors will reduce the level of gas in your home by: • Installing a suction system to draw the gas out of and away from the home• Changing the ventilation and pressurization in the basement• Sealing foundation cracks and openings

    Dealing with the dangers of radon gas 2008

  • Contractors will reduce the level of gas in your home by:• Installing a suction system to draw the gas out of and away from the home• Changing the ventilation and pressurization in the basement• Sealing foundation cracks and openings

    Dealing with the dangers of radon gas 2008

  • Let you access your home computers from outside the home .

    CES: Microsoft's serving platter for content 2007

  • That being the case, I'm not super jazzed about your attempt to change the rules of our contract retroactively... a rule change that'd force me, my wife and my infant daughter out of our home yes, Walter, we may not own the house, but it is *our home*... unless you're somehow declaring that the several million renters in the City of Los Angeles are all, in fact, homeless.

    Case Study: Repealing Rent Control Can Reduce Gridlock 2007

  • They, better than anyone else, know which worker needs a home most, or if he has a home….

    The Speech Castro, Fidel 1970

  • If you ever come here -- and by _you_, I mean the 100,000 subscribers to the Lady's Book, don't go anywhere else, for _here_ you will find a home -- a regular New England _home_.

    Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 Various

  • A third is: _B., being at home, heard this as occurring away from home_.

    Beowulf An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem Lesslie [Translator] Hall

  • The idea of finding your “forever home” puts into conflict two glaring realities of American housing today: there is a vast shortage of housing right now, and still people tie much of their self-worth to what their house looks like.

    Stop Looking for Your Forever Home Alana Semuels 2024

  • We bought our forever home in 2017, in a NoVa suburb. It was perfect. Great location, great floor plan, fantastic neighbors, all of it.

    Stories of "forever home" that wasn't ? profligateclarity 2024

Comments

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  • -- from Son of Groucho - (?)

    So why leave it to go to friggin' Ikea?

    October 12, 2007

  • Home—the place, the countryside—was still there, still pretty much as I had left it, and there was no reason I could not go back to it if I wanted to. Wendell Berry "A Native Hill"

    July 19, 2008

  • Well said SoG!

    August 21, 2008

  • Hey, where is SoG these days, anyway? Haven't heard a peep lately.

    August 21, 2008

  • He's cheating on us with Flickr.

    August 23, 2008

  • Hmph. ;-)

    August 24, 2008

  • Has anyone else found that they can't get home? By which I mean, clicking on the Wordie wordmark or "home" link yields a "gone all 500 Application Error on you" page.

    I can search for words, and follow links and get to the Last 100 Comments by typing in the URL directly, but the home page itself seems to be off limits. I get the same 500 error when I click on the "987 comments" (soon to be 988) link on my own profile, although the equivalent link is fine from others' profiles.

    November 5, 2008

  • The front page is working for me, so either John's fixed it or it's only affecting some Wordies.

    November 5, 2008