For better or for worse, I have a habit of getting caught up in semantics. Word choice matters to me, both in terms of accuracy and precision. Minimizing ambiguity and managing connotation are important too. It’s like the difference between a chef and a cook. So, that’s why it bothers me when people use “house” and “home” interchangeably, as they’re not exactly the same thing.

A House Defined

True, look up a list of synonyms in a thesaurus and there’s a good chance you’ll see “house” and “home” together, alongside related words like “residence” and “accommodation.” While these words do have a lot in common, their precise definition (and the related connotation) will vary.

Here’s my take, put as simply as possible.

A house is a single building, designed primarily as a place for people to live. In my mind’s eye, when I think of a “house,” I picture a single-family detached home. It’s a standalone building and it is most commonly inhabited by a single family, though the definition of “family” here is pretty loose.

What’s a Home?

A home, on the other hand, is a much wider term that encompasses almost any sort of dwelling where people live on a (relatively) permanent basis. This can include low-rise apartments, high-rise condominiums, townhouses, mobile homes in trailer parks, castles, coach houses, cottages, chalets and more. Homes can be single-family or multi-family dwellings.

This is coming from a human perspective, of course, as the definition of a “home” in the animal kingdom is even broader.

For my part, when I think of a (human) home, I tend to think of single units or households. The individual apartment is a home, whereas the apartment building as a whole contains many homes. No one would refer to a 70-story condo tower as a “house,” but each condo is very much a “home.”

Houses, Homes, and Housing

Given this understanding, all houses are homes, but not all homes are houses. And then you’ve got a collective term like housing that refers to all homes together, like how you might talk about the Vancouver housing market.

We do get into a bit of a gray area when it comes to duplexes, triplexes, and other similar dwellings. My gut reaction is that the entire duplex, the whole building, is a “house,” while each “half” of the duplex is a “home.” I fully realize the slight hypocrisy here, as I said a house is typically a single-family dwelling.

And really, it’s all a matter of semantics. It’s just that it bugs me when someone says to meet them back at their “house” when they live in an apartment. Does that bother you too, or is it just me?