dwelling

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈdwɛl.ɪŋ/
• Rhymes: -ɛlɪŋ

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Etymology 1

From Middle English dwellynge, dwellyng (“delay, continuance, abode”), equivalent to dwell +‎ -ing. More at dwell.

Noun

dwelling (plural dwellings)

1. A house or place in which a person lives; a habitation, a home.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:abode

   The old house served as a dwelling for Albert.

   • 1864, Alfred Tennyson, “Enoch Arden”, in Enoch Arden, &c., London: Edward Moxon & Co., […], →OCLC, page 40:

     For Philip's dwelling fronted on the street, / The latest house to landward; but behind, / With one small gate that open'd on the waste, / Flourish'd a little garden square and wall'd; [...]

   • 1963, Margery Allingham, “Foreword: The Turk Street Mile”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, page 9:

     He turned back to the scene before him and the enormous new block of council dwellings. The design was some way after Corbusier but the block was built up on plinths and resembled an Atlantic liner swimming diagonally across the site.

   • 2010 August 7, May Berenbaum, “This Bedbug’s Life”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     I was so thrilled to see a live bedbug, I showed it off to every graduate student I ran into that day: Cimex lectularius[,] a small, flat, wingless, brown ectoparasite that hides in cracks and crevices in human dwellings and emerges under cover of darkness to feast on human blood.

Derived terms

• dwellinghouse, dwelling house
• dwelling-place
• dwelling place
• indwelling
• lake dwelling (“prehistoric structure”)
• multidwelling

Translations

house or place in which a person lives

• Albanian: banë (sq), banesë (sq) f
• Arabic: مَنْزِل (ar) m (manzil), سَكَن m (sakan)

  Moroccan Arabic: سكنة f (sukna)

• Armenian: please add this translation if you can
• Azerbaijani: mənzil (az), ev (az)
• Basque: bizileku (eu), bizitoki (eu)
• Belarusian: жыллё n (žylljó)
• Bengali: মকান (bn) (mokan), মঞ্জিল (bn) (monjil)
• Bulgarian: жи́лище (bg) n (žílište)
• Catalan: habitatge (ca), vivenda (ca)
• Central Sierra Miwok: ˀu·ču-
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 住宅 (zh) (zhùzhái), 住所 (zh) (zhùsuǒ)

• Czech: obydlí (cs) n
• Danish: bolig (da) c, bopæl (da) c
• Dutch: woning (nl), woonst (nl) f
• Esperanto: loĝejo (eo)
• Finnish: asunto (fi), asumus (fi)
• French: domicile (fr) m, habitation (fr) f
• Galician: eido m, vivenda (gl) f, moranza f, moradía f, soxorno m, lar (gl) m
• German: Wohnsitz (de) m, Wohnung (de) f, Behausung (de), Wohnstätte (de)
• Gothic: 𐌱𐌰𐌿𐌰𐌹𐌽𐍃 f (bauains)
• Greek:

  Ancient: οἴκημα n (oíkēma), οἴκησις f (oíkēsis)

• Hebrew: דירה (he) f (dirá), דיור m (diyúr), מגורים (he) m pl (megurím), שכן (he) (shékhen)
• Hungarian: lakás (hu), lakóhely (hu), otthon (hu), (rare) lak (hu)
• Ido: lojeyo (io)
• Italian: abitazione (it) f, residenza (it) f, dimora (it) f
• Japanese: 居留 (ja) (きょりゅう, kyoryū), 住居 (ja) (じゅうきょ, jūkyo), 住宅 (ja) (じゅうたく, jūtaku)
• Korean: 주거 (ko) (jugeo), 주택 (ko) (jutaek), 거류 (ko) (georyu)
• Latin: domicilium (la) n
• Low German:

  German Low German: Wahnung f, Wahnen f, Wahnsitt m

• Macedonian: живеа́лиште (mk) n (živeálište)
• Manchu: ᠪᠣᠣ (boo)
• Maori: tuohunga
• Middle English: dwellynge, herberwe
• Norman: d'meuthe f
• Old Norse: (Eastern dialect) bo, (Western dialect) bú
• Old Turkic: 𐰋 (b²)
• Orok: дуку (duku)
• Ottoman Turkish: مكان (mekân)
• Pashto: کور (ps) m (kor), خونه (ps) f (xuna)
• Plautdietsch: Wonunk f
• Polish: mieszkanie (pl) n
• Portuguese: domicílio (pt) m, moradia (pt) f
• Romanian: locuință (ro) f, domiciliu (ro) n
• Russian: жили́ще (ru) n (žilíšče), жильё (ru) n (žilʹjó)
• Scottish Gaelic: còmhnaidh f
• Slovak: obydlie n
• Slovene: bivališče n, domovanje n
• Spanish: domicilio (es), morada (es), residencia (es), casa (es)
• Swedish: bostad (sv) c, boning (sv) c
• Thai: ชุมรุม, ทำเนียบ (th) (tam-nîiap), เวสน์
• Turkish: ev (tr), konut (tr)
• Ugaritic: 𐎎𐎌𐎋𐎐𐎚 (mšknt)
• Ukrainian: житло́ (uk) n (žytló), поме́шкання (uk) n (poméškannja)
• Vietnamese: chổ ở
• Walloon: dimorance (wa) f, lodjisse (wa) m

References

• “dwelling”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Etymology 2

From dwell +‎ -ing.

Verb

dwelling

1. present participle and gerund of dwell

Middle English

Noun

dwelling

1. Alternative form of dwellynge