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pronunciation

How to pronounce home in British English: UK [həʊm] word uk audio image

How to pronounce home in American English: US [hoʊm] word us audio image

Noun:

where you live at a particular time
housing that someone is living in
the country or state or city where you live
an environment offering affection and security
an institution where people are cared for
the place where you are stationed and from which missions start and end
a social unit living together
(baseball) base consisting of a rubber slab where the batter stands; it must be touched by a base runner in order to score
place where something began and flourished
Verb:

provide with, or send to, a home
return home accurately from a long distance
Adjective:

used of your own ground
relating to or being where one lives or where one's roots are
inside the country
Adverb:

at or to or in the direction of one's home or family
on or to the point aimed at
to the fullest extent; to the heart

Word Origin

home: home: [OE] Old English hām meant ‘place where one lives, house, village’. The last of these survives only in place-names (such as Birmingham, Fulham), and it is the ‘house, abode’ sense that has come through into modern English home. Its ancestor was prehistoric Germanic *khaim-, which also produced German heim, Dutch heem, Swedish hem, and Danish hjem. It is not clear where this came from, although some have connected it with Latin civis ‘citizen’.

home (n.): Old English ham "dwelling, house, estate, village," from Proto-Germanic *haimaz (cognates: Old Frisian hem "home, village," Old Norse heimr "residence, world," heima "home," Danish hjem, Middle Dutch heem, German heim "home," Gothic haims "village"), from PIE root *tkei- "to settle, dwell, be home" (cognates: Sanskrit kseti "abides, dwells," Armenian shen "inhabited," Greek kome, Lithuanian kaimas "village;" Old Church Slavonic semija "domestic servants"). 'Home' in the full range and feeling of [Modern English] home is a conception that belongs distinctively to the word home and some of its Gmc. cognates and is not covered by any single word in most of the IE languages. [Buck] Home stretch (1841) is originally a reference from horse racing. Home base in baseball attested by 1859 (home plate by 1867; home as the goal in a sport or game is from 1778). Home economics first attested 1899. Slang phrase make (oneself) at home "become comfortable in a place one does not live" dates from 1892. To keep the home fires burning is from a song title from 1914. To be nothing to write home about "unremarkable" is from 1907. Home movie is from 1919; home computer is from 1967.

home (v.): 1765, "to go home," from home (n.). Meaning "be guided to a destination by radio signals, etc. (of missiles, aircraft, etc.) is from 1920; it had been used earlier in reference to pigeons (1862). Related: Homed; homing. Old English had hamian "to establish in a home."

adj.

adv.